


Undertow

by Cymbelines



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Body Worship, Jealousy, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Mutual Pining, Power Play, Rimming, a 'got wasted and stumbled into the wrong bedroom' one shot that spiraled out of control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-07-15 18:07:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 36,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7233124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cymbelines/pseuds/Cymbelines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Flint had told him about Thomas Hamilton, Silver tried to forget about the matter entirely or, instead, regard it practically: Captain James Flint once had a torrid affair with another man. It was simple, or it should’ve been, but weeks had passed since the revelation and Silver was still thinking of it, an inexplicable discomfort weighing heavy as an anchor on his chest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

I need you to be a monster- which is to say, I am trying not to love you,  
which is to say, I am still dreaming of kissing your claws.  
\- Fortesa Latifi

Because they had won an unlikely victory in an impossible war, the crew had earned themselves a much needed reprieve. By some miracle, Captain Flint had conceded to a short rest and _The Walrus_ was promptly anchored on foreign waters, far from England’s shadow. The tropic heat of Hispaniola had cooled pleasantly by nightfall, leaving the crew to enjoy its hot sands, sweetly-voiced paramours, and cold drink.

Truthfully, Silver hadn’t planned this. He had expected Flint to resist the prospect of allowing the men distraction. He had expected Flint to hang stubbornly to pursuing Nassau. He had expected- had wanted- Fint to say no. This lapse in momentum burdened Silver with too much time to waste, too much time to _think_ and thinking had recently presented itself as a problem. After Flint had told him about Thomas Hamilton, Silver tried to forget about the matter entirely or, instead, regard it _practically_ : Captain James Flint once had a torrid affair with another man. It was simple, or it should’ve been, but weeks had passed since the revelation and Silver was still thinking on it. Silver wanted to regard Flint's proclivity for men like he regarded the color of his eyes- a simple truth, weightless and mundane. 

But, Silver was on fucking Hispaniola, surrounded by all the women, game, and drink any man could ask for, and he was still thinking about _Thomas fucking Hamilton_. He tried to understand Thomas- to give him a face, a flaw, some sort of human dimension. He seemed inhumanely noble-hearted, impossibly clever and Silver tried to understand what sort of man Flint must've been back then, to have loved and be loved by him. He couldn't imagine it. Silver fidgeted restlessly as he sat amongst his men, a headache thudding heavy in his temple and he couldn’t explain why, but a sharp, fierce discomfort overcame him.

So it made sense, in the way that things can make sense and still be entirely shameless, that Silver had taken to drinking a little too eagerly. It quieted his thoughts, allowed him to settle into his own skin. He’d checked on the crew, at least, and there was some reassurance in that, even if they were more than capable of orchestrating catastrophes in the blink of an eye. Yes, Silver thought as he stumbled in the darkness, he’d at least done that.

John Silver really wasn’t all that drunk. Truly he wasn’t. He fondled blindly through the darkness for the door to his lodgings and even managed to let himself in without falling over. The intoxication did no favors to the already difficult task of walking- his bad leg was sharp with painfulness, gnawing at him with every step to bed.

He undressed with little struggle, throwing his clothes to the wayside of the bed. He hastily worked at the prosthetic. No amount of alcohol could dull the blinding hurt of his injuries, but he swallowed the pain dutifully and tried to get comfortable. Strangely, John couldn’t recall ever lying on a bed quite this soft. He nestled into the cool, thin sheets, stretching lazily as his hand trailed pointlessly down his stomach.

When was the last time Silver had gotten a moment’s privacy? He palmed at himself in the dark, purposeless and only half-committed to working himself into arousal. The brothel girls had looked on him sweetly, offering themselves indiscriminately to him as if unfazed by his invalidity. He had rejected them and now, touching himself in the darkness, Silver couldn’t quite remember why.

Silver realized, half-dazed, that the crew would think him strange for his disinterest.

He laughed to himself, breathless and drunk, remembering the tales the crew had spun about Flint: he was incapable of love or lust, forbidden to lay with anyone lest his tempt some sea-witch’s furious jealousy. No one would have imagined that their ferocious, horrifying captain could love more than most, could look onto men _and_ women with wanting, could touch them, hold them, want to take them whole-

Silver felt himself grow stiffer at the thoughtless fondling. Closing his eyes, Silver took himself fully into his hand and worked at himself into a steady rhythm. Then, intrusively, he thought on the native men he had seen amongst the brothel girls, slender and brown-skinned and beautiful. He thought on the beautiful drawl of their Spanish and French. He wondered if Flint had seen their warm eyes, their golden skin; where had Flint disappeared to, anyways? They had settled onto land and he was gone without explanation. Had he fallen into bed with someone after all? Had speaking of Miranda and Thomas broken some dry-spell, reopened some age-old hunger? Silver wondered if any of those sun-brown men recognized a desire in Flint that the crew could not. He wondered if any of them had offered themselves to Flint in their beautiful, broken English and he wondered, too, if Flint found them tempting.

Silver halted, stunned by his own thoughts. He felt the weight of his cock in his hands, the wetness that had gathered beneath the pad of his thumb. He felt his face heat up spectacularly, blood rushing to his ears. What the fuck was he _doing_? What the fuck was he _thinking_?

After Flint had told Silver about Thomas and Miranda, a silence had settled between them. Flint looked at him long and hard, his usual scowl replaced for something much more exhausted and sore. “I need to know if what I’ve told you will present itself to be a problem,” he spoke, slow and deliberate.  
  
“Of course not,” Silver had replied, shrugging noncommittally, feigning nonchalance as he lied. This wouldn’t be the problem Flint anticipated it to be, but it gave rise to a problem nonetheless; Flint wouldn’t have felt the tiresome drag of some secret, forbidden question nagging at the darkest recesses of his mind if he hadn’t been.

Panting in the darkness, Silver tried to forget Flint entirely. He couldn’t allow himself this- not when he had already conceded to being Flint’s eventual end. This secret, terrible hunger he harbored for Flint was juvenile; tolerable, maybe, years ago when he was younger and still soft-eyed, desperate to make himself relevant to _The Walrus_ , her crew, and her captain. Silver wasn’t blind and he most certainly wasn’t deluded: He recognized his dull attraction for Flint, could feel the goddamned evidence of it throbbing in his hand. But Silver had to forget this, forbid it, smother it down- he could not allow himself to make the same mistakes that Thomas and Miranda had made.

Exhaling sharply, Silver squeezed at himself, tight enough to hurt. He bit his lip violently, forbade himself to continue, denied himself the climax his body yearned for. He wanted to dismiss Captain James Flint. He wanted to entirely forget the warmth in his voice as he spoke of Miranda and Thomas, the sorrow that darkened his expression as he spoke on their loss. But Silver couldn’t forget and he couldn’t stop thinking about it, fixated over the what they were to each other, what they did to one another, how they must’ve loved and panted and thirsted over each other. He felt bitter and twisted with it, discomfort settling over him like an anchor.

John Silver wanted desperately to forget but it was always the things he tried to ignore that most worked against him, spiraling out of control. 

* * *

It was entirely too bright. The morning spilled forward from the windows and pulled John out of the deep waters of sleep. He felt soft with rest and when he stretched across the soft mattress and the wonderful, impossibly comfortable sheets, John heard himself hum with pleasure. He rolled over across the bed, utterly and blissfully happy.

Then, that moment decidedly ended. Silver opened his eyes to Captain James Flint, glaring at him from across the room.

“Oh, fuck –” Silver squawked. His eyes quickly scanned the surroundings- those weren’t his windows. This wasn’t his bed. Silver had gotten so goddamn drunk last night he stumbled into the wrong fucking room. “ _Jesus Christ_.”

“Not exactly,” Flint said tersely, visibly irritated. He drew closer to the bed, shifting where he stood so he could look Silver in the eye. “Can you explain to me why I've come to find you sleeping in my bed?”


	2. Chapter 2

Silver bit his tongue, eyes cast to the sheets that entangled him, saving him from lying bare in front of the man who already seemed to ready to maul him. “I _may’ve_ had one too many to drink last night. I must’ve forgotten the way to my room in the dark. Your lodgings and my own are beside each other, after all.”

 “That was irresponsible of you,” said Flint, his voice tightly knotted as if it pained him to state the obvious.

 “The men were accounted for before I retired for the night,” said Silver. “No harm was done, albeit the simple mistake of making a wrong turn in the dark.”

Flint’s gaze seemed to rest on anywhere, anything, besides his quartermaster. He spoke without looking to him, visibly tense. “You asked me to allow our men a respite and I conceded; that did not mean I expected you to emulate their recklessness. If I had been here when you stumbled in-”

 “Well, I wouldn’t have stayed if you were.”

For just a moment, Filnt’s expression changed at the curt reply, some strange strain of emotion imperfectly repressed. He was always so infuriatingly in control of himself. Silver felt a desire come upon him: not last night’s wanting, but a desire to crack through Flint’s composure, to force him to show something other than agitated indifference.

A moment of silence stretched between them, tension heavy as the heat in the air.

“Look, we'll put this moment past us- I’ll just find what’s mine, if you don’t quite mind, and happily be on my way,” Silver began, scourging through the sheets for his clothes. Then, a thought possessed him. He blurted it out suddenly, unthinkingly. “If not in your room, where were you last night?”

 Flint stared at him, taken aback. “Walking.”

 Silver noticed his false leg on the floor, at the wayside of the bed. Lifting himself with a wince, Silver drew closer to the edge of the bed, readying to leave. “ _Just_ walking?”  
  
The other man nodded curtly, looking away. “I was unable to sleep.”

Silver knew the captain well enough to catch when he was being lazily dishonest. Flint could spin tales as well as Silver could, had deceived and entranced him easily in the past, but sometimes Flint spoke in obvious half-truths, pointedly unwilling to explain himself. It couldn’t be helped. However closer they had become, Silver knew Flint didn’t entirely trust him.

“I should’ve know this wasn’t my room- you have a _bathtub_ ,” John observed conversationally, eyebrows raised. “Captain’s privileges have saved you from the public baths.”

 Silver watched as Flint _finally_ looked to him. Instead of meeting his stare or considering his still undressed form, Flint's eyes lingered over Silver’s scarred leg. “When did you last tend to your leg?”

Unreasonably, Silver felt a peak of annoyance. He was often defensive about his disability, but he was vastly more bothered by Flint’s total indifference. The only moment he had looked to Silver was to gape at his mauled leg- Silver remembered the brothel girls and how _they_ , at least, had regarded him as if blind to his injury. He didn’t know which reaction he disliked most. He didn’t exactly know how he wanted Flint to regard him, either, and that irritated him all the more.

 “You’ve been needlessly straining yourself,” Flint continued. “You haven’t complained, but you've hardly been able to hide your discomfort."

 Silver frowned. "I'm not unaware of my condition- whatever decisions I've made, I've made with full consideration of my limitations. ”

"I'm not questioning your judgement, I'm merely pointing out that you needn't agitate yourself pointlessly. If you're putting yourself through needless harm for the sake of this crew or our aims, don't. I don’t want that from you.”

"And“I don’t want pity from you,” Silver retorted pointedly. “Not from you of all people."

“It isn’t pity,” Flint said, his voice shockingly softer, his gaze lowered for just an instant. He drew closer, kneeling down to pick up Silver’s prosthetic. He extended it to Silver, stiff with awkwardness. Silver watched how Flint avoided his stare, his eyelashes dipped, the sunlight warm behind him. He was, Silver realized, exhausted. 

  
“Is that what robbed you of your sleep last night, then?” Silver said, attempting to dissolve the tension between them as he took his false leg from the man standing before him. “Were you up all night worried for me?” 

Flint scoffed immediately. “If anything’s worrying me, it’s how dependent _The Walrus_ is on your flippant health.”

Silver smiled to himself, relieved by the humor in Flint’s voice. He took his false leg in hand, worrying at his bottom lip. He would’ve liked to have rested longer and, though he’d never admit it, Silver had hoped for a few more hours off of his bad leg. But he needed out of this room, out of Flint’s company, away from the sound of his voice. He took a deep breath, bracing himself for the pain to come, and –

“Use the bath,” Flint spoke abruptly. Silver gawked at him, confusion so obvious in his expression that Flint tried to explain. “An opportunity for soap and clean water doesn’t come often. I’ve been given enough to spare.” 

Silver was taken back by the offer. He measured his words, working to hide the surprise in his voice. “As tempting as a cold bath in this heat may sound, bathing would be far too much effort at this point. I’d rather be on my way, I’ve no place here-“

“I’ll help you into the tub if that’s the problem,” Flint said, cutting him off. Was he irritated that Silver had rejected his offer? This was strange of him, oddly abrupt and graceless for a man who so often spoke so stirringly. “A few paces to the tub isn’t worth the struggle of putting the prosthesis on. The soap, basin, and towels are here already, I can easily call on someone for hot water.  
  
Silver found himself at a very uncharacteristic loss for words.  
  
The other man cleared his throat after a moment's pause. "I realize I say this on the continued presumption that you’d want to bathe."  
  
“I would appreciate that,” Silver said dumbly. “I – thank you.”

Flint released a breath, then looked away. Outside, the sound of ocean murmured from the distance, the waves breaking in rhythmic laps. Flint must’ve known that Silver was unclothed beneath the bed sheets- Silver wondered if Flint had accounted for his nakedness when he had offered to help him. He remembered how Flint looked at his leg, then, and thought that perhaps his nakedness hardly mattered at all. He was an invalid, scarred and half-whole. Whatever physical attraction existed between them, Silver knew, was entirely one-sided. 

Without a word, Flint drew closer to him but appeared hesitant to touch him. Silver waited, bidding bitter thoughts to rest, until Flint touched his shoulder, angling to help brace him out of bed. The sheet slipped away from between them easily and neither spoke a word, leaving Silver’s nakedness unacknowledged- Silver looked to Flint only once, unsurprised to find Flint pointedly looking away from him. He helped Silver to the tub professionally, careful but efficient with their shared strides.

This was unbearable. Silver cursed inwardly, irritated by the absurdity of his circumstances. He could feel the material of Flint’s clothing against his bare skin, was aware of the warm solidity of Flint’s arm bracing him up, Silver’s own arm across the expanse of his shoulders. He gave him a secret, side-ways glance and caught- for just a moment- the freckled skin of Flint’s bare neck, the flush of color that crept over his face. Silver thought on the tropic heat in the room, wondering absently if Flint was overly warm, if he was the one in need of a cold bath instead.

They reached the tub at last. They jointly bent down, Flint helping Silver settle inside the bath before curtly turning away. Silver bit his lip, bothered by the flippancy and now, stupidly, embarrassed.

“I _am_ sorry,” he said then, watching as Flint lingered over the door, his back turned to Silver, entirely ready to leave. “This was an idiotic mistake. It won’t happen again.”

After a pause, Flint spoke without turning to him. “I’ll call for the water.”

Before Silver could reply, the other man was gone, shutting the door hastily behind him. Closing his eyes, Silver took a deep breath, his mind buzzing with a thousand thoughts. Soon enough, some women would come into the room, tending to him, helping him bathe. Until that moment came, he listened to the silence, trying to breathe in the smell of the room, lingering over the fresh memory of Flint’s warm arms around his body. He had been embarrassed enough. Silver would allow himself the indulgence of a single moment’s regret. He decided, then, that he would send whatever help he would receive away as quickly as possible- he imagined that some residual part of James Flint that lingered in shadows of this room would dissipate if this moment was interrupted, if the room was trespassed by an outsider, and he didn't want that. He wasn't ready for that. John Silver was a selfish man, entirely unwilling to share this room or this moment with anyone else.

* * *

The bath had been a needed luxury. Silver was no longer bothered by the Hispaniola heat. Water still clung coolly to his hair, dripping soothingly onto the airy fabric of his fresh clothes. He had bathed, tended to his leg, and dressed without hiccup or reproach. Now, tying back his hair, Silver readied to leave.

A gentle knock came at the door one, two, three times. The girl who had tended to him, dutiful and shy, must’ve returned to check on him. “I told you already,” Silver called out, turning to the door, “I’m fine now. I appreciate your help, but you’ve done more than enough.”

He opened the door easily, promptly surprised by the figure at the other end. The man before him was a stranger, young and sun-brown and wide-eyed. They stared at each other, mutually confused by the other. “You’re not Damaris,” Silver said.

The young man’s eyebrows borrowed, his face contorted in confusion. He opened his mouth to speak, as if struggling for words. “I- I don’t,” he began, his voice thick with an accent. “No entiendo.”

 _He didn’t understand._ Silver swallowed, shaking his head. “Hablo espanol,” he began in Spanish. “No necesito mas ayuda, ya han ayudado suficiente.”

“Perdóname," the young man said, voice rounded with humor. "Pienso que he visitado la habitación incorrecta\- estoy buscando el capitán."

Silver frowned. He was looking for the captain- what business did this man have with Flint? No one had known of Flint’s lodgings besides himself and it hardly stood to reason that their hosts would’ve freely disclosed such information to a perfect stranger.

The young man looked to Silver expectantly, his eyes bright with a trusting easiness, needlessly tall and broad-shouldered, with the sort of lean, easy muscle of youth. This was why hadn't gone to his room last night, Silver realized. This was the fruit of it, waiting for an answer: a beautiful man who knew exactly where he was going and who he was expecting when he knocked on that door-

The stranger's mouth thinned into a slight frown, daunted by Silver's silence. Thinking for a moment, he considered his words and pronounced, in English, what had already become apparent: “I’m looking for James Flint.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried my best to make the context of this chapter's spanish obvious enough that English-speakers could get the jist of what was happening regardless of the language. Here's a translation either way-
> 
> "I speak Spanish. I don't need anymore help, you've all helped me enough."
> 
> "Pardon me...I must've gone to wrong room. I'm looking for the captain." 
> 
> Anyways! How'd you like this chapter? I'm telling you, the story has taken a life of its own. The pining continues and now a new, cute guy? Oh boy. Except the pining to intensify, dear readers. This was my first time writing Flint, too, and I hope I've done a good enough job. This fic very much feels like a gamble, but if you're all enjoying reading it as much as I am enjoying writing it, there's victory in that. Please tell me what you think! Thank you so much!
> 
> [come say hi to me on tumblr!](http://marsza.tumblr.com/)


	3. Chapter 3

After the morning they shared together, Flint worked to avoid Silver, as if he had passed through fire and was now suffering through the burns. That was perfectly fine. Flint may have shared fundamental truths with John Silver, but that hardly meant they were attached to the waist. In fact, the distance Flint imposed between them probably would have gone unnoticed if only Silver wasn’t actively seeking him out in the first place.

The young man- _Emmanuel_ , he had said, shaking Silver’s hand with a sort of easy enthusiasm that Silver found trying- had trailed behind the quartermaster like a hapless pup. Whatever had happened between Flint and Emmanuel would remain a mystery: Emmanuel seemed entirely unwilling to disclose the full truth of the matter, simply explaining that he remained indebted to the captain. Silver had tried to dismiss him, had explained to Emmanuel that his thanks would be extended to Flint as soon as possible, but the young man only regarded him with a curious smile and insisted on keeping at Silver’s side. _I need to know you will you give him my thanks_ , Emmanuel had said, his eyes bright. T _ell me, please, if he accepts my offer._

What a grand fucking way to spend a respite.

By the time Silver had finally gotten hold of Flint’s whereabouts, the sticky heat of the island had eased into a soft coolness and the setting sun blazed through the tree-lines, bathing everything in tangerine light. Silver looked on from where he stood, watching as his men chattered and drank without reserve. There was a boisterous ease shared by the crew, goaded on by the brothel girls who were grateful for their business, but it was obvious where that easiness fell short- Billy and Flint sat together, somewhat divided from the crowds, tense with whatever conversation was unfolding between them. Silver realized, in watching them, just how unable he was to unwind. He was no longer part of the laughing, boisterous crew; time had changed him, reshaped him, drenched him in that same tense, distrustfulness that was apparent between Billy and Flint.

Then, Flint looked away from the man beside him, catching Silver watching him from the distance. Before long, Flint stood from where he sat, bending only to deliver some parting words to Billy before leaving him.   

They spoke. They walked. The chattering of the _Walrus_ crew was replaced by the slow, easy songs of frogs and insects. After Flint learned of who had come knocking on his door, they fell into a moment’s silence. 

“He wanted me to tell you he’s grateful for last night. He feels he now owes you a tremendous debt,” Silver said.

Flint looked to Silver then, his face betraying some sort of tension. He spoke cautiously, guarding his words: “Did he tell you of last night?”

Silver shook his head. “Not a word. He simply meant to express his gratitude. While I’ve been dealt the dubious honor of playing translator for you both, I haven’t the slightest idea what’s happened.”

 _Explain this to me_ , Silver refrained from saying, the words heavy on his tongue. _Give me some goddamn clue what’s going on here._

“If you see him again, tell him he needn’t thank me,” spoke Flint. “What I did was for my own peace of mind as much as it was for his.”

Silver tensed at the intentional ambiguity in Flint’s response, his chest tight and aching. He hadn’t expected this defensiveness in his partner and he certainly hadn’t expected the stinging resentfulness of being excluded from the truth. What could have possibly happened between them that was deserving of so much goddamned secrecy? Silver had been so good at keeping people out, at holding everyone at a distance for the sake of convenience and survival. But here he was, nonetheless, wanting- however stupidly- to be in Flint’s confidence, to be regarded intimately.

“He wants to join the crew,” said Silver, trying to cloak his hesitation. And then, at Flint’s reaction: “Christ, you’re seriously considering it- he’s a _boy_.”  

Flint set his jaw. “How old do you think Billy was when he joined our crew? You speak as if I’m considering harboring an infant. He’s a _man_ , however younger than you and I, and I don’t think I need to remind you that we need men to win a war.” 

“I have already brought men into this crew- _strong_ men, _weathered_ ones who know what the fuck it is they’re doing. The work I have done and the stories they are telling of me will only garner us more recruits, more attention- we don’t need people like _him_.”  
  
“That’s enough,” said Flint. “If he wants to join our crew, we will accept him into it.” 

“So we can break him? Have you forgotten how I was treated when I joined _The_ _Walrus_ and what I had to endure to be accepted?” Silver neared him hastily, putting a hand on Flint’s shoulder when the captain sought to turn away from him. “Listen to me, you may not consider Emmanuel a boy, but he looks and acts the part, he’s a _youth_ and people will take advantage of that. He’s inexperienced, unaware of the realities of this world, and I garnered that in a single conversation with him. You, apparently, spent an _evening_ with him and–“ 

“I said that’s _enough_ ,” Flint said, hastily pushing Silver’s hand off of him.  Silver was silent, struck by the sharpness in Flint’s tone. Their walk had hiccuped, their bodies still and tense with contention for one another. _Why are you so bent on accepting him? What do you want him for?_    
  
Instead of speaking those words aloud, Silver said, “They already talk of you as if you are a machine, emotionless and heartless. I know that weighs on you and that is why I cannot understand how you will not show even a moment’s hesitation in this. This is a _mistake_.” 

Flint frowned at Silver, his focus sharp except for a single moment when his stare rested on Silver’s mouth. The moment passed instantly, gone as soon as it came. “Time and time again you take liberties against me- you claim to know me, pretend to understand me from where you stand, outside of me. If you knew me half as well as you claim to, you wouldn’t challenge me on this. You would have respect for my authority, and my good sense-“ 

“It isn’t any of that,” Silver began to say –  
  
“Enough now,” Flint interrupted. “I've made my decision and I will stand on it. If I see him again, I will accept his offer and I will expect you to do the same.” His eyes were opaque, as though his thoughts had turned inward. “I have private matters to attend to and we are leaving in two day’s time. If you’re hoping to find any rest on this island, take to it quickly. I won't be persuaded to waste any more of my time.”

Silver watched as Flint left. He felt the urge to shout after him, to antagonize Flint, to burden him with the same frustration that tugged incessantly in Silver’s own chest. He knew by now that Flint never acted precipitously and instead had the wisdom to give himself time and space alone to think. But there was a terrible doubt here, too, and Silver felt it heavy in each breath he took. Something was blinding Flint, something was taxing on his behavior, on his patience. It was now a matter of choice: would Silver press him on the matter directly or take a step back and hope- however ludicrously- that the truth would come of its volition?

* * *

The moon shone brightly in the ink-blotted sky, the ocean loud as it broke in waves on the shore. Silver stood at the hostel veranda, listening to the chorus of chirping bugs, crooning birds. Silver felt the memory of childhood years like a half-forgotten song: he had never been to Hispaniola, but he had spent many years in a climate such as this one, listening to night-songs as he struggled to sleep. His adolescence had a certain colorlessness to it, a certain depraved and loveless bitterness in being alone, unaccounted for and unwanted. Some things, Silver recognized, had changed but others had remained decidedly the same.

The sound of someone nearing behind him shook Silver from his thoughts. He turned, standing straighter, his expression sharper, until he realized who had decided to stand at his side.

“Too hot to sleep?” Flint spoke, his tone dully sympathetic.

Oh. So this is how it would be, Silver realized. Flint had never apologized to him before and Silver did not expect him to break character now; still, Flint had made a pattern of this, trying to amend for past mistakes in small gestures, embedding his remorse in actions instead of words. 

Silver looked onto Flint before speaking, catching the shadowed line of his form, the slope of his shoulders, the lines of his face. His hair was longer than it was before and Silver wondered, absently, if Flint would ever grow it out again. “Something like that,” he said eventually, setting his sights back towards the sky. “I keep listening to the birds.” 

Flint scoffed, looking upward to the stars. “It makes for quite a different sort of sleep, doesn’t it?

“Or none at all,” Silver interjected, smiling. He watched Flint nod, the ropes of his neck flickering with a swallow, and because it was late into the night and dark as pitch- because Silver was sleepless and fatigued with the emotional labor of the past two days- Silver imagined reaching out and resting his hands on the flicker of Flint’s pulse. The thought came and went before he could punish himself for entertaining it. 

“I always find it difficult to sleep after a long time at sea,” Flint confessed. “The ground beneath me is too steady, the bed too soft- I feel amiss when the air doesn’t carry the salt of the sea.”

Silver made a quiet, wordless sound of amusement. “I definitely don’t have your same love of sailing.”

“Even now, after all this time?” Flint asked, giving him an incredulous look. “You hardly complain anymore, I assumed you thought nothing of it by now.”

“Perhaps,” Silver conceded. “But I don’t love it. When I allow myself to think on the future, I don’t imagine myself on a ship, still stuck in this toil towards some larger goal.”

Something in Flint’s posture eased and Silver remembered, then, all his visits to Mrs. Barlow’s home, his affinity for books, his desire for stability. When Flint spoke, his voice was softer than before. “What do you imagine, then?”  
  
Silver looked down and let out a breath of what might’ve been laughter, if only the answer wasn’t so terrible, so entirely disallowed. _You_ , he thought. _How could this happen? I imagine you_. He shrugged, feigning the easiness he wished he felt. “Not sleepless nights with tropic frogs, I can tell you that much- come to think of it, why are you awake? Did you come upon me on another long night of just walking?”

“I had planned on that,” Flint said then, turning to him. “But I also wanted to speak with you. I wanted to explain my decision to you, in case you’re still in doubt.”

Unexpected relief bloomed in Silver’s chest. He watched Flint guardedly, breathing evenly before flashing a smile. “Well, you don’t have to sacrifice one choice for the other- if you like walking so much, walk with me.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the delay, darling readers! This chapter was a real pain in the ass to write- it felt like pulling teeth. I don't know why this story decided to move past being a simple pwp and attempt to be a pining fic- I've never done this before and I don't quite know if I manage it well. Either way, the next chapter is finally, FINALLY gonna get saucy. The idea of this story sprang out of a single sentence and I am /dying/ to give it platform. 
> 
> I'll try to update the next chapter soon, within a few day's time. Please, as always, give me an idea of how this is going. It's such a gamble. Even a simple two or three words is suffice. Thank you <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: There's a suggestion of violence here- for the sake of clarity, it isn't sexual violence. The mention is fleeting and not graphic.

“Why?” Silver asked, almost automatically, stunned by the explanation. They walked together in slow strides, teetering off the cobbled road and drawing closer to sand, awash in moonlight and the soft rhythm of the sea. The clamoring of drunken celebration dulled as they distanced themselves in the dark. “Did you even consider what could’ve happened in consequence of what you’d done?”

“I hadn’t,” Flint said to him, looking to the sea. “I only knew a man was being mistreated and I saw something of myself in him. It isn’t uncommon for men to use brothel boys harshly.  I was only the witness to an altercation I knew was escalating. I acted before anyone got hurt.”

“Someone did get hurt, though,” Silver interjected. “You made sure of that."

Flint frowned, releasing a breath. “Someone who damn well deserved it.”

In his mind’s eye, Silver envisioned Flint attacking Emmanuel’s offender. Silver knew of his capability for violence and had become familiar with the feverish, zealous flare of his anger. He had seen him fight men and destroy them. He looked at Flint’s hand now, his fingers thrumming thoughtlessly at his sides as they walked on in silence. He must’ve touched Thomas with those hands. He must’ve caressed Miranda with the same hands that seemed mutually shaped for pulling triggers. Silver felt as a sudden crushing loneliness lanced through him. How was it possible to want something he’d never experienced, never seen?   
  
Flint watched him cautiously, almost distrustful. He spoke carefully, as if walking a very thin line.  “Do you understand now why I would give him an escape from this place? You may not understand what pushed me to action, but I wanted to explain myself. Nothing will happen to me but I doubt he'll fare very long after we leave- not someone with proclivities and enemies such as his. There’s no habit to this; I won’t forge some pattern out of spiriting whores away, but – “

“But you felt compelled to help him,” Silver said, nodding ever so slightly. He tried to release a tension in his posture he wasn't aware he had been holding. “He’s young, but he’s strong. He’s got Billy’s figure and strong men are assets, however their inexperience. That will be answer enough for whatever questions may come when we set sea tomorrow.”

Flint was staring at Silver now, his jaw tight and his demeanor suddenly introspective. "Why do you do that?" Flint said slowly. "Why are you so hell-bent on catching my thoughts before I speak them?" 

Silver kicked at the sand beneath him, offering Flint the sort of smile that kept its peace. "I suppose I'm just trying to understand you- I know you hate the assumptions I make about you, you've made that perfectly clear."

"No, I didn't ask because of that," said Flint.  
  
When they caught one another's gaze, Silver's question rested unspoken between them: why had he asked then, if not to chastise him? They settled into a static silence, walking over the sand with the awkward tension of unspoken words.

“Are you eager to set sea?” Flint asked, then, his tone conversational. “When we set back to course, we’re scheduled to rejoin with Mr. Scott’s daughter, among others. I imagine that will lighten your mood.”

Silver laughed. “Does my mood leave so much to be desired?”

Flint regarded him with a strange look, as if Silver had asked something with an obvious answer. Falling back into quiet, Silver suddenly realized that Flint had taken to walking significantly slower and, mutually aware of the dull throbbing in his bad leg, imagined that he must’ve worn the discomfort noticeably. They walked aimlessly, thoughtlessly, teetering purposelessly towards the sea. 

“What is it like with her?” Flint asked then, stopping to look towards the inky blackness where sky and water met. “We’ve spoken very little to one another. I know little of her character, but you could speak to me of her- you hold each other in strong confidences.” 

Silver, who was never at a loss, croaked, “You think I know her well?”

Flint gave him that strange look again. “Her regard for you is obvious. The men, too- Christ knows you can’t hold the stories they tell to any confidence, but stories often carry a seed of truth. Do you not know what they say of you both?”

Sure, he had grown to care for Madi in the time they knew each other. He admired her deeply- among pirates, captains, and thieves, Madi stood as an anomaly, singular in her uncorrupted sense of righteousness. Silver swallowed pointedly, suddenly aware of the dryness in his throat. “It isn’t like that. I don’t know her intimately. We’re amicable, but I’ve not...”, Silver worried at his lip, considering his words. “We’re merely on good terms. Partners and friends, perhaps, at most.”

“Do you care for her?” Flint asked suddenly, his voice quiet as he walked closely behind Silver.

 Silver turned to look at him, his eyes wide. “That’s a strange question.”

“You don’t have to answer it,” Flint replied quickly, almost cutting him short. “It’s nonsense- idiotic fodder for conversation. I shouldn’t have pressed.”

They stood side-by-side at last, facing the cool, surging energy of the rolling tide. “It’s alright,” Silver spoke slowly, “I only have very little to tell you. I don’t care for her in the way you're supposing- I don't love her, but she sees me in a way others don't, with neither pity or horror, and I appreciate that deeply.”

Flint’s eyes met Silver’s again, his eyebrows furrowed as if there were something he were trying to understand.  “She sees you as you are, then- does that not account for anything?”

“She worries after the worst parts of me- she’s got a sense of what I’ve done and she anticipates what I will do in the future. I think she means to remind me that I can choose against a dark path and is disappointed at the knowledge that I’ve already chosen it. There’s something difficult to account for in me and she doesn’t understand it.”  
  
Silver recognized the dissatisfaction in Flint's expression. Unable to help himself, his gaze lingered over Flint's mouth, tugged into a small frown, and the downcast shape of his eyes. They were so close now, walking beside each other. If Silver only swayed ever so slightly, their sides would touch. He deliberately stretched the distance between them.   
  
"Have you ever loved?" Flint asked then, crossing an unestablished line, and unknowingly knocking the breath out of the man beside him. "She sees you. She seeks out the best in you. Why do you think that is?" 

Silver felt a frustration spring forward and fester in him like an infection; he remembered Flint's anger towards him earlier that day and that sharpness in his tone played over in Silver's mind, coiling like a snare. Suddenly, he didn't want to answer anymore questions. He didn't want to be standing here, besides James Flint, where no one else could see. More than anything, he didn't want to acknowledge how the only response he could muster suddenly felt cheap, almost dishonest, entirely bitter to his lips. What he felt for Flint wasn't love- it wasn't. It was hunger, perhaps, something parasitic and desperate, like a gnawing at his side. It wasn't love, it was weakness, foolishness, desperate idiocy.   
  
"No," Silver said, guiltily pleased by the sharpness in his voice. “I never have. I've little interest and nearly no confidence in such a thing, certainly not among men like myself. But, I imagine love calls for both- not only to see another for what they are, but to _understand_ them. And she is, I think, too good to understand the likes of me.”

A loaded moment passed between them. Silver refused to look away from the sea, entirely unwilling to consider the man to his side. He listened as Flint spoke instead. “It’s strange," he spoke softly, "If either of those I’ve lost were here now, I venture I would feel similarly. Miranda contended with me so often- Thomas, I fear, would never have it in him to understand what he would see in me now.” 

Silver visibly tensed at the mention of Thomas’ name. He wanted desperately to speak, instantly overcome with an ugly jealousy as he remembered Flint’s earlier chastisement: _If you knew me half as well as you claim_   _to_. If Flint wanted to be understood by someone, why not look among the living? Why not allow Silver what he had grown to want so hungrily? He unclenched his jaw, the words sore in his throat. Instead,  struggling to hide his discomfort, he spoke with deliberate lightness: “I've enjoyed the walk and conversation but I think this is where I leave you.”

“You’re leaving?” Flint asked, halting midstride. When Silver looked to him, shaken from his thoughts, he was surprised by the sudden sharpness in his look. “Why?”

He shrugged. “It’s late. I ought to sleep.” 

Silver took pointed strides away from him, turning his back to his partner. Closing his eyes as he walked on, Silver felt unbalanced and sore, desperate for distance. 

“This is bullshit." It happened quickly- Silver heard Flint speak, had registered the sound of his steps over the sand, a spring to his direction before Flint tooka fistful of Silver’s shirt and pulled him back. Turning him around, Flint's fingers grazed the warm skin of Silver’s chest and he _glared_ at him. “Suddenly you're tired? Am I that fucking stupid? You keep doing this- if you find who I am so aberrant now, have the balls to tell me so to my face instead of doing this _again_.”

Silver gaped at him, his temper rising. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“When I shared what I did with you, I did so in the confidence that you would put whatever prejudices or moral qualms you have to the wayside and understand me for it. Instead, you take to this- one mention of his name and you’re rushing to leave. Ever since I told you, ever since we've gotten on this damned island, you've avoided me like I'm some goddamned  _leper_.”

Silver pulled back sharply, ripping himself from Flint’s proximity. “You think I have- a fucking moral qualm about your relationship with Thomas? I’ve not once said anything about it- I told you it wouldn’t change anything. I told you I didn’t care and I don’t –“

“No, you don’t care, you just wince at the mere mention of his name,” Flint interrupted. “You just walk beside me as if your skin is crawling, as if you can't _breath_ beside me. You've regarded me differently since I told you- did you think me so dense that I wouldn’t fucking notice how you’ve been? You’ve changed with me. I’ve changed to you because of what I shared with you- “

Silver felt his face heat with outrage. “That’s fucking insane- is that what you think is happening?”

“The morning I found you in my room, in my bed, you looked at me as if you were waiting for me to strike you,” Flint continued. “You refused my help and when you accepted it, you carried yourself as if I was sick to the touch. I thought it was simply the nature of your circumstances, but you’ve had that air with me since the night we buried the treasure. You told me this wouldn’t be a problem.”

Silver shoved Flint away from him. “Christ, and you chastise _me_ about assumptions? You have no fucking idea what it is I think of this and if you had half the mind to simply approach me on the matter instead of spinning all these stories –“

Flint looked at him, sharp with anger, as if physically struck. “ _Stories_? I speak from experience. I have seen family, I have seen friends and confidantes- people who held my highest confidences for years- turn their faces in disgust at what I am. I know what the law says, I know what the people say about my proclivities- do you think I could endure a lifetime of rejection without anticipating it now, without suspecting to see that pattern in you?”

“Why did you tell me then?” Silver spit back, overcome with irritation. “If you think so little of me, if stand so certain that I would abuse you as they did, why did you tell me your story? I could’ve attacked you. I could’ve gotten you out the way. I could’ve told the crew, told our enemies, spun the worst stories of you and snuffed you out completely, why didn’t I do that?”

Flint visibly tensed. Silver felt a moment of tense satisfaction, pleased to have stumped the man that was looking at him with such confusion until – until Silver recognized the solemn glint in Flint’s eyes, gone in an instant but there- actually there, truly there: fear, shame, embarrassment at being found out.

“Fuck, did you think I could do that? Did you really, truly suspect I would do that to you?” Silver asked quietly, his stomach sinking. “You think me that base? Did all human decency die with Thomas, that you think me such a monster?”

“Fuck you,” Flint threw back, his voice rough and overcome with upset. "Fuck you for saying that.”  
  
Without knowing who laid hands first, they worked against each other- shoving each other back, reeling blindly in the dark. It felt as though all of Silver's need to touch and be touched translated best to violence, so that he struck at Flint without reserve, shoving against him, hitting him unthinkingly. 

They struggled against each other, closer now to the trees that framed the beach than to the shore. Flint slipped back, then, and Silver surged forward to hit him. They were inches apart, chest to chest, and it left Silver too open, too vulnerable- Flint's fist landed stronger than before, square on Silver's jaw. The blow sent Silver reeling back and he stumbled, the hard sand shooting out beneath him. He felt his head dizzy with disorientation, a d painful stinging in his cheek. He tried to stand and failed weakly, his legs tiring out, and then Flint grabbed him in two, strong fistfuls and pulled him up. 

They were pressed together against. For just an second, Silver became acutely aware at the sound of their panting in the dark. He surged against him, Flint's back hitting a tree's trunk with a rough, palpable thud.  
  
In that strained, still moment where his eyes met Flint's own, Silver shrank -

Silver felt as though he were losing his mind, his breath quick and his mind hazy with a sickening swirl of emotion. His gaze moved quickly over Flint’s body, drinking in the sight of him so close, so forced out of that tired mask of composure and indifference Silver hated so much. He perceived Flint in fragments: the collar of his shirt ripped and mangled from where Silver had tugged at him in their brawl, the slight blush of what would become a bruise on his cheekbone, the flush color in his face apparent even in the darkness, the light catching in his eyes, the sharp line of his jaw. Silver laughed, breathless, entirely bitter. “You’re so goddamn blind. You're just- you don't understand _anything_.”

Flint’s gaze dropped, his agitation still heady in his form. Silver waited, raising a hand to his shoulder and squeezing sharply, digging his nails into flesh, yearning to hurt him.

“Then show me,” Flint said so quietly that, even in each other’s arms, Silver could hardly hear him. "If I'm so fucking blind, make me see."

Silver took a breath, his lips parted over unspoken words. He watched as Flint’s gaze met his own and, without meaning to, held onto him tighter than before, his aim shifting dangerously into something beyond hurt. What would Flint do now if he touched him, put his hand to his neck like he so desperately yearned to do? Would he strike him, hurt him, break him apart? Silver tasted metal in his mouth and swallowed it down. What was there left to lose?  
  
Silver looked at Flint’s hooded, anxious gaze. He felt the anxiety in Flint's paralyzed form and, when he tugged at him, he was unsurprised by Flint's resistance. He wouldn't pull away. He wouldn't move forward. Flint was either waiting or readying to attack him again. Silver watched as Flint stared at him, his face contorted by wild confusion. He watched as Flint's eyes dropped, linger where their bodies touched, halting over Silver's parted mouth and that- that was the trigger, catching like a spark of fire in the dark. Taking Flint's face between his palms, Silver kissed him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....whoo boy. I hope my novela-loving abuela is proud of me, I've honored my Latina roots by relying on that good ol' "fight turns into a makeout session" trope. "But, Nia," I hear you dear readers say, "one kiss isn't a makeout!" 
> 
> Well....I hope you enjoy the next chapter. 
> 
> Please, as always, tell me what you think. All your reviews have been so sweet and so kind- I'll reply to all of them, but please know that they each inspired me to work on this chapter so much sooner and more confidently than before. Also, I hope Flint's perspective doesn't seem to out of the blue: I remember the tension and fear that came days and weeks after I came out to my family. I feel people don't speak too often about the anxiety of finally coming out, of knowing everyone knows. I was very deliberate about suggestion a bodily tension and awkwardness in how Silver behaved when thinking about or being with Flint- I imagine that, to Flint, all of Silver's grimaces, avoidance, and tension would read as disgust, distrust, and upset. Mix that in with how much Flint wants him and I can't help but feel that Flint is really, really suffering. And that suffering became violence, I suppose. 
> 
> Well, I tried. I hope that you all didn't need my explanation to sense that, but if you did, then I just need to become a better writer! Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

John Silver’s heart was pounding, his chest bursting with the fear of having made a terrible mistake- this was not what Flint had expected and Silver could feel the shock in his form, as if the man had turned to stone. Then, Silver felt the single, exhilarating moment when Flint’s shock turned into something else -

Their noses collided, lips, teeth, breath- everything bursting forward all at once in shared desperation. They were clumsy against one another, entirely unpracticed and far too hurried, but Silver felt as if he were seeing stars; he kissed Flint over and over, slurring into a breathless dizziness that wanted more and more and _more_. He pulled Flint closer up against himself, legs and shoulders and chest and _there_ all pushed together in electrifying friction. Flint reacted to the contact viscerally, unable to suppress a low, debilitated sound of titillation. 

“How didn’t you know?” Silver asked, turning his face when Flint leaned forward to catch his mouth again. He kissed the line of Flint’s jaw instead, mouthing down the stretch of his throat. “That morning in your room- I would’ve let you do anything to me.” 

“Fuck,” Flint sighed, shuddering as Silver sucked experimentally at the junction of his neck. “Don’t say that- it took everything I had not to look at you that morning. Though I’d offend you, disgust you, scare you away, but the way you _looked_ in my bed, I wanted to –

“Anything- you can do anything you want with me now,” Silver interrupted, speaking recklessly. He immediately felt Flint tense beneath him and then the moment between them, once heated and intoxicating, grew static. Silver stood upright, reluctantly leaning in to touch him again, anticipating rejection. 

“This is a mistake,” Flint said thickly, his hand spread against Silver’s throat as if to keep him at a distance. He didn’t tighten his hold over Silver’s neck, didn’t even push him further away. He only shook his head weakly, speaking more to himself than the man pressed against him. “Christ, this _can’t_ happen– “ 

“I know that,” Silver spoke again, doomed by the truth of it. “We don’t have to speak on this ever again. We don’t have to return to this. But just for tonight, before we can think on it any longer, I want you. I want anything you’ll give me.”

Their eyes met and Silver found no reproache for his forwardness, only an expression on Flint’s face that seemed struck, confused, and something _else_. Silver held his breath, hoping inwardly that Flint's subhuman gift for self-denial would falter this one time; that he would concede to carelessness just this once.   
  
“Alright,” he spoke finally. He lifted a hand to sweep Silver’s hair away from his brow and, with surprising gentleness, entangled his fingers in the dark, soft strands. “Then this will be the beginning and the end of it.”

Then, without another word, Silver felt as if some unseen barrier had breached between them. Flint kissed him hotly, sounding against Silver’s lips, pressing his tongue against the line of them to deepen what already felt unbearably intimate, impossibly close. His grip on Silver tightened, a hand on the dip of his back, Flint's other hand still entangled in curls of hair. He was everything Silver imagined him to be, possessive hands and firm muscle and terrible, beautiful noise.  
  
Silver broke for air, the scant space between them filled with their jagged breaths, but Flint’s was back on him in no time, snaring Silver into another kiss, pressing their bodies together pointedly. Eager for more, Silver rolled his hips against Flint, laughing breathlessly when he jolted at the sensation. He rocked forward again and again, pressing deliberately at the bulging friction between them.

It was Flint who took them a step further, running a hand down the line of Silver’s back until he could grasp greedily at the swell of Silver’s ass. Silver’s voice cracked when he moaned, breathless but rutting against Flint all the while. He hadn’t been this frenzied in years, fumbling in the darkness and delighted at any spark of pleasure he could find. He felt almost drunk with the hazy giddiness of this, sounding desperately as Flint worked him over, his thigh slotted between Silver’s thighs. 

“Fuck, you’re loud,” Flint laughed, moving to spread a wide palm over Silver’s cock, tenting painfully in his pants. 

Silver couldn’t stop the slow slide of his hands, snaking his way underneath the material of Flint’s shirt and teasing at the first touch of hot skin there. “Does that really surprise you?”

“No,” Flint said, setting his hands to Silver’s pants and working over his belt. “No, you've never known when to shut up, this isn't a surprise. You’re just as I imagined you’d be.”

Silver grinned."You've imagined this before, then?"

The belt fell to the ground noisily and Silver’s grin broke, his chest heaving with a sharp intake of breath as Flint curled his fingers over the waistband of Silver’s trousers. “Once or twice," Flint conceded casually, as if he were bored. “I’ve wondered what you’d sound like as I took you- imagined what you’d feel like if you took me.” 

Silver lifted his eyes, blinking wide as he considered what he had been told. He licked his lips, pleased when Flint briskly handled him, switching their positions so that it was Silver, now, who was pressed against the tree that towered over them, keeping them in shady, rustling darkness.

“I want that,” Silver spoke, running the edge of his fingernails over the back of Flint's neck, suddenly reminiscent of how long Flint's hair had been when they first met. He groaned as Flint finally took hold of him, his fingers circling around his length.

“You want a lot of things,” Flint said, his voice was warm and smug and as teasing as the work of his hands, his palm and fingers running up and down Silver with little intention, touching not to stroke him but to discover the girth and the length of him. 

“I know this will come as a shock to you, but I’m a selfish man,” Silver said, breathing a laugh that hitched, as if startled, when Flint let go of him without warning and used both hands to yank the material of Silver’s pants and underwear down to mid-thigh. He watched in disbelief as, right in the dark openness of the beach, Flint lowered to his knees.   

Flint nosed at the junction between between Silver’s thigh and his hip, deliberate in how he neglected Silver’s flushed and leaking member. He kissed at Silver’s skin languidly, turning to rest his parted lips over Silver’s curved cock only when he had neared enough to brush against it with his cheek. Silver sighed, suddenly aware of the stuttering repetition of his quickening breaths as Flint finally tended to him, running his tongue slowly against the underside of of his cock. Trembling, Silver willed himself still, desperately tempted to drive up into the wet, hot suggestion of Flint’s mouth. Instead, he cupped the back of Flint’s head thoughtlessly. Flint opened his eyes then and looked up him, pausing only to lean into the touch in a silent motion of consent. 

Finally taking Silver fully into his mouth, Flint hummed against him. He hollowed his cheeks, sucking against him, pulling back just enough for Silver to realize how much of his cock Flint had already taken, his skin tight and shining with spit.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Silver sighed, dropping his head back against the tree trunk behind him. He moaned softly, over and over, nearly overwhelmed by the sensation of Flint working at him, humming as he sucked him off, obscene sounds filling the ocean air. "Oh, god, you're - you're _perfect_." 

Easy, teasing slowness gave way to momentum as they both began to move in tangent, Silver slipping out of his own control to shift his hips in compliment to the bobbing motion of Flint’s work. Silver felt beside himself, entirely overwhelmed, dangerously close to finishing and he could hear himself, all wanton sighs and debauched noises of approval- a slurred, messy chorus of  _please_ and _yes_ and _more._

Silver could see Flint’s own arousal all the while, the way he kept his legs parted where he knelt to account for the aching between them. He watched when Flint palmed at himself, groaning around Silver’s cock, breathing hotly over wet, sensitive skin. It was all too much and when Flint sucked at him sharply, taking him a touch deeper, Silver practically sobbed.

“ _Oh_ , I’m going to –,” Silver forewarned, bringing a hand to grasp restlessly at his own hair, desperate for foundation. “I – Captain, I – “

How could he have known what that title could do, accidentally spoken in a broken, rasping breath? Flint moaned, squeezing at the tense muscles of Silver’s thigh with one hand and groping at Silver’s ass with the other, pushing him forward and deeper into his throat, taking him with unbearable intent. Silver saw stars behind his tightly clamped eyes as he came, sobbing dryly as Flint swallowed down his release. His knees buckled beneath him, his legs sore and even almost pained with the tension, and he felt himself slide down to where Flint was postured on the sand. 

“Fuck,” Silver hissed as Flint held him. He was desperate to apologize for his weakness but he lacked the breath and coherency to speak. “Let me – goddamn it, I want you in my mouth, too, I want –“

Silver didn’t want this to be over, not so soon and not because of physical weakness of all goddamned things. This would be the one and only night they’d allow themselves this lapse in judgment and he felt angry at its early demise, unsettled at the prospect of leaving Flint in wanting.  He opened his mouth to speak – 

Then, the drunken chatter of nearing voices sounded, alarming as a shot in the night. Flint and Silver regarded one another with wide eyes, still flushed, breathless and speechless in the sand, as they listened to the sweet, high laghter of a Dominican woman and the familiar babble of one of the men of the  _Walrus_  crew. 

They both jolted into action, gathering themselves as quickly as possible. What they had to lose, if caught together, was inexplicable in its enormity. Silver fastened his pants, casting a quick eye on Captain Flint only to see how his hands visibly trembled as he made himself presentable. He had seldom seen Flint so visibly shaken but Silver understood that this sort of danger had scalded him before, leaving him friendless, betrayed, and ruined. Flint had risen too high, had crossed to many terrible, irrevocable lines, to lose everything now- 

Silver took Flint by one of his hands, stilling him from anxious tremors. “Go,” he whispered hoarsely. “There’s no telling what they’ll think if they catch us both running and you know I can’t run as quickly as you. Leave, James, before they see you and we find ourselves forced to do something terrible– “

There was a light in Flint’s eyes now and Silver was struck by the accidental intimacy of having spoken his name and taken his hand in this way. For a fleeting moment, looking felt like touching and the boundaries of intimacy blurred so that this, too, felt like a secret between them. He swallowed dryly, squeezing Flint’s hand sympathetically and motioning for him to leave.

James Flint obeyed, avoiding the nearing couple in the cover of the night. Silver took a deep, needed breath as he crawled nearer to the trees, hiding still in their shade, and waited for a clearing. Silver felt overwhelmed by all that he wanted now. This was supposed to have satisfied the hunger, dulled the yearning and robbed it of its power. Instead, he watched as the waves crashed over the shore and felt Flint’s absence like a draft.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the delay in update, my friends! The seventh was my birthday so I had familial obligations through the weekend and then the week was riddled with anxiety and an uptake in work obligations. I had a real hard time with this chapter (there's a joke in there somewhere lmao) and I second-guessed a lot. I think this fic will just get better if I accept that this is a trial-run for my writing SilverFlint. I'm overwhelmed by how good of a story I want to write for you all and scared by the idea that I'm unable to do so.
> 
>  _Anyways_ , this was fun. I'm still new to writing sex scenes and I hope that much isn't painfully obvious! Next chapter though- oh, next chapter I really do hope we can make good on our tags. I've also extended our chapter length to account for a little more to come. I hope you enjoy it. I'll update as soon as I can and, until then, I really do hope you enjoyed this chapter, gang. Thanks for reading.


	6. Chapter 6

John Silver had anticipated the sleeplessness that had followed their abrupt separation. His nights were often distrusted by night terrors and discomfort; sometimes, remaining asleep proved itself impossible and a few, scarce hours would simply have to suffice. But he hadn’t accounted for the aching that settled deeply at his core- he returned to Flint’s words in the restless, heated hours of dawn. _This is a mistake._ _This is a mistake._ As he dozed in and out of a hazy sleep, Silver was wracked by the truth in those words. Of course, Flint wasn’t wrong. This had all been a terrible series of mistakes and, in truth, Silver hadn’t entirely wanted this to happen but it _had._ Silver had tried to starve his desire and, only hours ago, hoped to kill it with a single indulgence. But that hunger had instead magnified and frightfully so. Wanting had sunk sharp teeth into him and was gnawing him through.

When Silver awoke, he could hear the lashing of a thunderstorm prattling on the roof above. He dressed and readied himself, goaded on by recklessness and exhaustion. His clothes were heavy and darkened with rain when he arrived at Flint’s lodgings and he hesitated before knocking on the door. What exactly did he think was going to happen now? They had settled on an agreement: _this will be the beginning and the end of i_ t. But it hadn’t ended properly. Yes, Silver knew this was a mistake but it had been left half-committed and _Flint_ –

Flint had gone on his knees for him and Silver had been denied his only opportunity to act in turn. He wanted to be the one handling Flint now, taking him to the very edge of composure, to the very height of titillation. He wanted to touch Flint, to unravel and disrupt him. Silver was overwhelmed by all that he wanted. He knocked on the door again, more fiercely than before.

The door swung open.

“What do you want?” Flint asked, braced to the doorway. The question hadn’t come out particularly harshly, but his voice was clipped, his eyes narrowed when he regarded Silver. He looked exhausted, like he had either woken up too quickly or not slept at all, and  his clothes were wrinkled and untidied, as if he had only just thrown something on. He gave Silver a long look. “You look like shit.”

“You’re not looking so good yourself,” Silver scoffed.  “Aren’t you going to let me in? It’s pouring out.”

“You’re tracking water everywhere,” Flint said, his mouth tugged into a thin frown. “When did you return to your room last night? Have you even slept?”

“Rest is for the weak,” Silver said with a smile. “I had to stay a good while longer before the coast was clear- if you’re worried about someone having seen me after you left, I seriously doubt it.”

Something in Flint’s form tensed at the response. Had he dedicated himself to forgetting what happened between them already? Silver watched as he buried his head in his hands, long fingers swiping over a tired face. “We’re leaving today,” he spoke, glancing outwards to the window. “I’ve already sent word out to the men. When this storm passes, we’ll ready to leave immediately.”

“I understand,” Silver replied, breathing deeply before readying to speak again. A moment of stillness passed over them both. “I was hoping to use your bath one last time today.”

Flint looked at him then, his face colored with suspicion and Silver gave him a mild smile. It was a simple ploy, laughable in its transparency, but Silver intended it to be that way. Opportunity lingered between them all the same, unspoken but ripe for the taking.

The hot water was brought to them quickly. The young woman who attended to them spoke little, but perceived the tension in the room with visible suspicion. She filled the tub graciously, secreting a glance at Silver and Flint as they all three maintained in static silence.

The door closed soundlessly behind her, the smell of rain carrying inside the room with a draft of wind. Silver stood up from where he had settled, having seated literally across the room from his partner as the bath was readied. There they were, in his bedroom again, awash in the sound of the pouring rain. Thunder clapped with striking proximity, as if the heart of the storm lingered directly overhead.

Silver understood the silence. Flint had neither accepted nor rejected Silver’s intentions, returning ploy for ploy- he was trying to unnerve him. If Silver intended to put Flint in yet another precarious position, he would have to be outright. Well, two could play at silence. Silver neared the tub, turning his back to Flint and began to undress. He worked at the clothes that clung to his frame, dropping his shirt in a sloping pile on the floor. He kicked his shoes off next and, hesitating over his pants, glanced over his shoulder curtly. Flint’s gaze was on him like fire and, so unlike the first time they shared this room, his sharp, open stare didn’t falter for a second. There would be no looking away this time.

Silver sat on the rim of the tub, rolling up the leg of his pants so that he could work at his prosthetic. He frowned at his injury, frustrated that this limitation was something he had to account for, but when he looked at Flint he still seemed entirely taken by him. Silver leaned back, relieved and inwardly stirred by how Flint was staring. “I’ll need you to help me into the tub, you know- like last time.”

“You shit,” Flint said, his voice absent of any venom. He spoke softly, with strange weariness, the chiding small and powerless between them. He rose from where he had seated, but stood perfectly still, not entirely drawn out of his defenses. “We agreed on _one night._ ”

“Well, that's true” Silver hesitated, breathing lightly as Flint walked across the room. He stood over Silver and held him, steadying Silver as he took off his false leg with a faint wince and dropped it carelessly onto the floor. “But, we didn’t finish.”

Flint bent to place a soft hand on Silver’s good knee and, though the touch lacked the intent Silver had been hoping for, it lingered. Flint touched him experimentally, his fingers skimming over the warm expanse of Silver’s thigh. Silver inhaled shakily, shuddering as Flint's hand dipped to the inside of his thigh lightly, closer to where Silver was already beginning to stir in response to being caressed. Flint didn't take him in hand. He didn't further the dip of his hand. Instead, he laid both hands on his core, fingers spread widely over the solidity of Silver’s stomach, squeezing there before wandering upward evermore.

Flint touched him without pause now, simply discovering the creases and turns of John Silver's body: a hand over the curve of Silver's waist, the dip of his back, the slopes of his arms. Neither of them spoke, as if speaking would break the delicate spell that unfurled between them. Silver breathed in deeply as Flint’s hand wandered to his chest, thumbs running slowly over his nipples, hardened in evidence of arousal. 

He moved upward even still, prompting Silver to sigh wistfully. One hand spread softly over Silver’s throat, thumbing at the line of Silver’s pulse and the other hand- the other cupped Silver’s cheek. Silver leaned into the touch and relished in how Flint regarded him now, his eyes half-lidded with want.

A moment of stillness came and went as they lingered in warm, fragile contact. Flint leaned closer even still and, though he didn't bend to kiss him, he swiped his thumb slowly over the swell of Silver’s bottom lip. When he spoke, his voice sounded quiet and still, concentrated in genuine confusion. “What are you trying to do to me?”

Silver shuddered as Flint’s free hand squeezed at the nape of his neck before carding through his hair. “I don’t know,” he murmured, speaking truthfully. “We’re leaving this place. We’ll never do this again and I want to touch you while I can.” He looked Flint in the eye, breathing in deeply. “I want to do for you what you did for me last night.”

“Returning a favor for a favor, then?”

Silver scoffed. “This isn’t about favors.”

Flint smiled sardonically. “No, I suppose not.”

He unhanded Silver and the absence of his touch was sore and awful. Exploratory and promising touch was replaced by pragmatism; Flint helped Silver into the water and waited until he was settled and fully immersed before sitting down on the floor himself, positioned by the foot of the tub. Though they sat facing one another respectively, Flint made no motion to continue his advances, reaching instead for soap and the small bucket that had been left at the wayside of the tub. He watched as Silver soaped his body thoroughly and, when he scrubbed soap into his hair, Flint thumbed at the foam that gathered by his eye, swiping away before dipping his fingers into the water. Then, something changed in his expression so that his focus turned inward and Silver knew immediately, without the time for word or thought, that Flint would leave.

He shifted where he sat, leaning forward to take Flint’s hand in his own. “Do you remember what you told me last night? What you imagined between us- it could happen now if you’ll only stay.”

Flint didn’t respond, but he was shaken from his thoughts and he searched Silver’s face with renewed intensity. Silver squeezed his hand and leaned forward to him, pulling Flint to him so that he could finally close the distance between them but he was met with resistance.

“No,” Flint grounded out, swallowing thickly as Silver stretched forward as much as he could. He allowed Silver to cup his face, leaning into the touch of his palm but resisting when Silver tried again to kiss him.  
  
Flint opened his mouth to speak, surely to force out another half-hearted protest when Silver interrupted. He shushed him soothingly, pressing a wet, almost chaste kiss to Flint’s jaw. “Shh,” he spoke, “you could take me now, like you wanted to- you could touch me, you could do anything to me and I would take it. Whatever you gave me, I would take it- just look at me, touch me. I’m _here_.”

Two firm hands dug into Silver’s shoulders, pushing him back and he didn’t know what to do. Silver held his breath, his heart thumping in his chest as Flint pushed him away gently. Had he gone too far? Had he pressed too brazenly? _This can’t be the end,_ he thought desperately. _Not now, not yet._

“I’m not going to touch you,” Flint said then and Silver looked at him with wide eyes, drinking in the color in his cheeks, the change in his form as it became clear that he had given up, however reluctantly, on self-denial. “You say you’d take what I give you-”

“Yes,” Silver spoke quickly, cutting him short. “Yes, but just- don’t leave me with nothing. Not when you were the first thing I thought of when I woke up. I couldn’t even sleep at the thought of you, at what you did to me, at what I wanted to do to you- ”

He couldn’t manage another word before Flint cupped the back of his head, taking a handful of his hair almost too roughly, and kissed him hard on the mouth. They kissed and kissed, sounding against one another when breath became scarce and desperation grew too strong. Flint broke away from him. “I’m not going to touch you,” he repeated, his voice low and rasped with shallow breaths, “if this is to happen again, you’re going to do exactly as I say, do you understand?”

Silver sighed an immediate yes, leaning in for another kiss which Flint denied him. Instead, he took Silver by the shoulder, pushing him back to the wall of the tub. He leaned back, sitting on the ground with legs parted and bent, so that his knees were leveled with the tub’s edge.

Silver worried at his lip, watching hungrily as Flint unfastened his pants. “I want you to touch yourself,” he said then and he looked so beautiful, so unbearably hungry for this that Silver felt as though he would go crazy at the sight of him. “Will you do that for me, Silver?”

Silver nodded slowly, breathing in deeply.

Silver wanted to sit forward and get a precise look at the work of Flint’s hands but he was obscured from view, a problem of position screwing perspective. He wanted to lean forward and get a glimpse of him, having only heard the rustle of clothing, the minimal shift in his position on the floor. Flint smiled at him, as if he had read his thoughts and was thoroughly amused. “I'm going to watch you,” he said. “I want to see how you take to this, whether or not you'll listen to what I say-”

“I will,” Silver said, all too quickly. He anchored his hands on the solid rim of this tub, his knuckles white with grip.

“Take yourself in hand,” Flint said. “Don't do anything else besides that.”

Silver obeyed, meeting Flint’s stare as he dipped his right hand into the water. He was painfully hard already and he wondered, with a faint stir of worry, how long he would last like this. He did as he was told, shuddering at the first spark of contact.

Flint bit his lip lightly, the pink of his tongue soothing at what teeth had worried- there and gone in an instant, leaving Silver craving. “How does that feel?”

“Like it’s not nearly enough,” Silver murmured, his voice raw. He felt helpless, entirely vulnerable. _More_ , he implored inwardly. _Whatever you want, only quickly- this is going to end. This moment is going to pass and we don’t have this anymore. We don’t have enough time-_

A few seconds seemed to span on infinitely between them. Silver lost his nerve, readying to speak when Flint interrupted him. “Stroke yourself,” he said with deliberate ease, as if he couldn’t see the desperation in Silver’s expression. “Do it slowly- remember how I took you into my mouth last night? Take your time as I did.”

Silver made a weak noise, sighing uselessly. He moving his hand up and down along the length of his cock, the motion accentuated by the water. He moaned- a broken, hopeless sound- as his thumb circled the head slowly, working in imitation of Flint’s tongue the night before.

Flint looked at him with round eyes, a moment’s reaction to the sounds Silver was making before surprise gave way to something more primordial and base. “How does that feel?” he asked for the second time, only his voice was rawer now, strung low. Silver opened his eyes and recognized immediately that Flint was stirred into motion, too- he couldn’t see onto Flint’s lap, he couldn’t get a glimpse at what instinct and desire naturally inclined his attention to, but Silver registered the motion of Flint’s arm, imagined the work of his hands over his member as he watched Silver in the bath. Silver could hear, too, subtle beneath the sound of his own panting and the churning of the water, Flint’s broken breaths, the unmistakable noise of a hand working over dampened flesh.

“ _Oh."_  Silver groaned, jerking himself off faster now. This was all too much- obscene and beautiful and exactly what he wanted except now every fiber of his body demanded _more. "_ _Ah-_ it feels nothing like you did. It’s not enough. _God_ , your mouth on me last night, I- it’s never been this way-”

 _Wait,_ said quiet, sober voice from the crevice of Silver's mind.  _No, no, no -_

“It’s never been like this with anyone else,” Silver said and he knew ought to stop speaking but words were spilling out of his mouth at their own accord. This was all too much, too honest, too dangerous. “There’s never been anyone that I’ve wanted like you. It’s never been like this. I just- I need more, I need-”

 _You,_ Silver thought and the word died in his throat, releasing in a broken, wanting sound. 

Air huffed out of Flint, his eyes wide and stunned, his face entirely flushed with color and Silver knew he must have been tremendously close, too, because it’s all gotten so frantic now, so desperate and rushed. “Fuck,” Flint said, panting hard. “Open your eyes. Look at me- I want you to look at me when you come. You’re close, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Silver all but cried out, arching his hips up from the the base of the tub, working upward into his own hand helplessly. “Yes, please, I’m almost there-”

“Look at me,” Flint repeated and Silver tried his best to obey. It felt like a Herculean task to force his eyes open when everything in him felt contorted, strung tight and ready to snap, his free hand gripping so tight on the edge of the bathtub that it stung with strain, but he managed it-

Silver looked at Flint and he was _captivated._ The sight struck Silver like a punch to the gut- Flint was disheveled and heaving, all of his finesse and control visibly crumbling before Silver’s very eyes, and Silver realized, however hazily, that he had never seen Flint like this in his life, not even in violence, not even in the most unhinged and heedless moments of their time together had Silver even seen Flint so far gone into anything like this-

Silver cried out sharply, his cock pulsing with the inevitable force of release. He clamped his eyes shut, his good leg slipped where it was braced on the floor of the tub and everything fell into a tremendous motion- water jolting out of the tub and spilling over, Flint sounding at his own climax, and Silver realized dully, in the dizzy haze of orgasm, that the weak, desperate sounds that were sounding out in the heated space of this room were his own, that he had taken to saying Flint’s name over and over again- _James,_ Silver sighed, knowing he was taking liberties, knowing that their names were still an intimacy they hadn’t allotted each other. _James, James, James-_

“Get up,” Flint said breathlessly, shifting where he sat, regaining control of himself.

“What?” Silver asked, still limp and heavy, still feeling as though the world was only just rematerializing around him. _No_ , he thought or maybe said, too far gone in the static of the moment to recognize one action from the other. _No, not yet, this can’t be over yet, I still want_ -

“I’m not done with you,” Flint grounded out and Silver looked at him with stunned eyes, realizing in the consequential that Flint’s hands were trembling as he tugged at his own clothes, beginning to disrobe. “I want you in my bed.This won’t happen again and it ought to happen on a bed.”

 _This won’t happen again,_ Silver echoed inwardly. He didn’t know if Flint meant to suggest that beds were a scarce luxury or if he, instead, was reminding Silver that their present recklessness carried within itself an inevitable, unavoidable conclusion. _Goddamn you,_ Silver thought with bitter sadness, _I know that. God, I know. You don’t have to remind me_.

Flint stood and neared him, bending to pull Silver up as they braced into each other's arms. Silver didn’t have the mind to look onto him, to recognize Flint’s near nakedness, to feel weakened and enthralled by his form. Instead, Silver pressed a firm hand to Flint’s jaw and kissed him hard on the mouth, as if kisses were meant to bleed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you have it, gang! A shiny new update. Next chapter, the saucy stuff will continue and we'll make good on those tags. I promise. These past few weeks have been very stressful and your support- your comments, your kudos, your visits- they all make a tremendous difference to me. Seriously, if I didn't know you were all enjoying this, I don't know if the story would have unfurled as it has. Thank you.
> 
> EDIT: Oh! btw! This bathtub scene was originally meant to be the second scene to the original two-shot. It was when I wrote that line- "what are you trying to do to me?"- that I knew I needed to do this story and the emotions behind it as much justice as I could- that's the hope, at least.


	7. Chapter 7

When Flint helped Silver onto the bed, the frenzy of the last half hour dissipated into something deeper and rawer than before. Silver couldn’t remember ever falling into bed like this with someone, all tangled limbs and soft, slurring kisses. He had expected a sort of bloodless hastiness from James Flint but, instead, they kissed each other graciously and touched one another without hurry, still sated by the release they found earlier.

Silver inhaled, the brittle sound of breath trembling, when Flint broke away from him. Instead of bending to kiss him again, Flint pulled out of his arms and sat upright. Silver felt his absence viscerally. He immediately longed for the weight of Flint’s body on top of him again, the cage of his arms around Silver’s middle, the warm solidity of Flint’s thighs between his own.

“What are you doing?” Silver rasped weakly, bracing himself up from where he laid to look at Flint. He worried at his lip, surprised to discover that Flint was openly staring at him and Silver realized, then, that they hadn’t really gotten a good look at each other since they undressed. Silver had never been with another man this way- the encounters of his youth were hurried and shadowed, an emotionless means to an end. He had more often been with women and he enjoyed their softness, their femininity, their gentleness. Now, Silver looked onto Flint and eagerly drank in the sight of him. Flint had nothing of a woman’s softness, nothing of a woman’s form but Silver had never wanted someone so badly.

Silver wanted nothing more than to commit the image of James Flint’s nakedness to memory. He drank in the broad expanse of Flint’s chest, freckled and flushed with color. He imagined a world where he could memorize the constellations of Flint’s markings, all birthmarks and old scars. He looked onto the flush in Flint’s face and the brightness of his eyes, the color of troubled waters. Silver’s focus lingered over Flint’s arms next, then his shoulders and then the ropes of his neck- they trailed down the solidity of His stomach, down to the dark hair that lined a trail to his groin and _that_ \- that, too, was exactly what Silver imagined.

“What are you doing?” Silver asked again, only stronger. “You’re too far away from me.”

Flint ran a hand down Silver’s good leg. “I need to know what it is you want to happen now,” he spoke. “Tell me what you want- what you’ll allow, what you won’t.”

“Do you have to ask?” Silver laughed, spreading his leg invitingly as Flint watched him with intent. “I want you to touch me. I want you to take me, like you said you would- I want you inside me. Isn’t that what you want, too?”

Something like relief washed over Flint’s face. He bent to press a kiss onto Silver’s good knee and his lips parted there, his teeth running a soft, teasing line over the muscle of Silver’s thigh. “Turn over for me,” he said and Silver could’ve shuddered at the want in his voice. “You’ll still do as I say, won’t you?”

“Yes,” Silver said, his voice low as he did what he was told, turning onto his stomach. Then, for the first time, Silver felt almost uncomfortably exposed. He could just _feel_ Flint staring at him and Silver was unnerved by his silence. “Is something the matter?”

The mattress shifted as Flint settled between Silver’s legs. “No,” he spoke, drawing his face down Silver’s spine to kiss at the nub of his tailbone. “Just imagining how much easier life would be if you always listened to me this well.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Silver snorted, turning to look back over his shoulder. He splayed his knees a little wider, pleased when Flint pulled his hips up higher and kissed at him again, both hands squeezing at the muscles of Silver’s thighs.

“Look at you,” Flint sighed against Silver’s skin, parting his lips so that his teeth skimmed playfully over the slope of Silver’s ass. Silver shivered at the feel of his beard against such sensitive skin, arching back against him for more. He taken taken back by Flint’s tone- Flint spoke as if in awe of the man before him, as if he were in some strange disbelief at Silver’s complacency. Although Silver was the one who incited this moment, he was nonetheless shocked by the want in Flint’s voice, the hunger in his eyes whenever he looked to him- nothing, not even the scars and limitations of his disability- seemed to detter it. Silver hadn't expected to be wanted so viscerally, so transparently; it stirred emotions Silver couldn't name and couldn't quite understand beyond an immeasurable need for more. Being wanted filled him with a silent thrill- more than that, it made him greedy for more of Flint’s attention, desperate to entice and provoke it to action.

Flint hummed against his skin, shaking Silver out of his thoughts. “Have you done this before?”

“No,” Silver said, his breath hitching sharply as Flint bit gently at the flesh of his thigh. “No, I haven’t- not like this.”

Flint hummed against him, kissing where he had bitten. “I’m going to open you up for me. If you’re not accustomed to this, we’ll have to go slowly- you’re going to have to be patient, do you understand?”

Silver nodded, worrying at his lip. He had imagined this before, all his shadowed fantasies relying on an abstract understanding of what sex between men looked like. Silver felt himself tense with excited anticipation, a murmur of nervousness tremoring just beneath it.

“I want you to speak to me. Tell me if you’re uncomfortable,” spoke Flint. “Not just your leg, Silver- if you want to stop, you tell me so, do you understand? Nothing here is obliged.”

Silver immediately recognized the implicit out in Flint’s request: there was still time to end this before they’d gone too far, there was still opportunity for Silver to escape him. “Can’t believe you’d ask that of me,” Silver said, his voice sardonic. “Thought you were always trying to shut me up, Captain.”

Silver turned his head to speak again when Flint took his ass into two handfuls and squeezed at him sharply, kneading at him before Silver could speak another word. He sounded sharply instead, making a strangled noise. “No, you’re never quiet,” Flint said, his voice low. “Christ, you make so much noise- even last night, the noises you made out there, right in the fucking open where anyone could see…”

Silver squirmed, shuddering as Flint parted his cheeks, his thumb dipping down the crevice before running back up and away.”What _if_ someone had seen? You’re always so loud. What would they think if they had heard John the Giant making all that pretty noise for me?”

“Fuck,” Silver hissed as the pad of one of Flint’s thumbs pressed softly at his entrance and, though he felt himself slightly anxious, Silver felt immediately frustrated when Flint didn’t push any further and continued his teasing instead. “Please, just-”

He arched back again, releasing a broken, needy noise before Flint pressed his thumbs to Silver again and spread him wide, sucking a kiss against his hole. Silver gasped at the warm, wet solidity that teased at his entrance. He could hear Flint moaning against his skin as if this act were giving him some singular, unexplainable pleasure too. Silver grasped at the bedsheet in two, tight fists as Flint began to lick at him, overwhelmed by how good it felt to be touched in a way he hadn’t ever accounted for and to be held in place by two, strong hands.

Silver tried to look over his shoulder, desperate for a glimpse of Flint working at him this way, but then Flint lapped at him, licking him in broad, long stripes and it took Silver’s breath away. He twisted forward despite himself, mutually overwhelmed and relieved when Flint pulled him by his thighs and pressed further into him.

“Fuck, that- that feels so good,” Silver sighed, thrusting back into Flint’s mouth. “I swear, I could come like this, just like this-“

“Christ.” The word was sighed, cold breath over damp skin and Silver shivered and laughed, breathless. “You can take more, can’t you, Silver?” Flint asked, his voice rough. “You’ll take what I give you, won’t you?”

“Yes,” Silver said all too quickly, too overstrung to have Flint deny him. He licked his lips, breathing in deeply, desperate to goad Flint on. “Yes, Captain, please-“

There was something about calling Flint by his title that seemed to illicit such a response from him. Flint worked at him without another word, pressing deeper this time, his tongue pushing past the straining, now loosening ring of muscle as Silver groaned, writhing desperately in the bed.

Then, Silver felt the added girth of one of Flint’s long-boned fingers pressing into him. Silver made a terrible, broken sound, his voice cracking at the sensation. He thrust pointlessly into the mattress beneath him, discomforted by the pressure this was putting on his straining, now leaking member but he was too far-gone, too overdone with pleasure to complain. As if reading his mind, Flint hiked Silver’s hips up again, bracing him as best he could to take any pressure off of Silver’s weaker leg while he continued to fuck into him with finger and tongue, stretching him wider with the slow, slick work of his mouth.

With time, Flint slowly pressed another finger into him, pressing in and out in measure before Silver’s body gave and accepted the intrusion. “Is that good?” he asked, an honest question.  
  
Silver nodded frantically and moaned his name, drawled long and weak and desperate. “Yes, _god yes._ More,” he pleaded, “another. I can take it, _ah_ –“

“Look at you, John,” Flint said, now pressing his ring finger into him, too, sinking in and out of Silver with a steady, rhythmic motion. “Fuck, you’re doing so good for me-”

Silver felt his strength begin to give. He dropped his face into the mattress, his hands still fisting tightly at the bedsheets as he turned his cheek, hiding the color in his face. His heart hammered in his ears and he could hear himself breathing hard, becoming desperate. Silver hitched his hips as much as he could manage, reaching to take himself in hand- his cock was heavy and entirely hard now, slick with precome. He ran his thumb across the underside of it, sighing sharply.

“Don’t,” Flint said then, pulling out of him. Silver keened at the loss, lips parting to groan in complaint. “Tell me what you want, but don’t touch yourself. I’m all you’re going to get, do you understand?”

“Then fuck me,” Silver breathed, unhanding himself and carding his other hand through his hair in the desperate need to have something to brace onto. “I want it, I want you- fuck me.”

When Flint unhanded him, releasing the iron grip he had on Silver’s thighs, Silver turned on his back immediately. He wanted to kiss Flint, to touch him- before he could speak on that desire, Flint was over him, straddling his waist. “Are you the one making orders now, then?” he asked, kissing Silver hungrily on the neck. They slotted together, rutting desperately against one another, and Silver could feel him,  hard and heavy against his cock. “Why should I do that for you? You’d come like this if I let you. I wouldn’t even have to take you, you’re almost there already.”

Silver threw his head back, offering more of his neck to Flint, moaning when he bit at the skin there. “Because I want you inside me,” he gritted out, “Fuck, I want to come with you inside me, James, please-”

The bed creaked as Flint shifted and pulled off of him without warning. He turned outside of Silver’s line of vision, reaching for something underneath the bed. Silver heard, rather than saw, as Flint opened a tub of lubricant with an audible pop. He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply as he registered the slick sound of Flint spilling a gracious amount to his hand.

Flint turned to him and his expression softened at the look on Silver’s face. He placed a hand on Silver’s hip, his thumb running soothingly over the jut of his hipbone. They kept a static silence and Silver registered, then, that the storm had eased, the earlier showers easing to a calm prattle overhead. Silver closed his eyes, breathing in deeply as he felt a blunt, slick pressure at his entrance. Despite all of Flint’s attention and work, Silver wasn’t entirely prepared for the wide, steady stretch of Flint’s cock pressing into him. He sighed as Flint pushed slowly into him before pulling out, just barely breaching him, before repeating the motion patiently.

They moaned in tangent, their voices sounding out in the otherwise silent space of the bedroom. Silver took more of him gradually, bewildered by how dull discomfort was steadily replaced by pleasure. Silver gripped at one of Flint’s arms with bruising tightness as Flint pressed another inch into him and still hadn’t bottomed out- impossibly big, Silver thought, but absolutely perfect, thick and heavy and _hard_ , pressing into him in a way that made Silver tremble.

The steady motions, the frantic need, the ache- Silver wanted desperately to be filled by him. He opened his eyes, panting heavily as Flint finally bottomed out, and then he caught his partner’s stare. They looked to one another in mutual awe as Flint thrust into him for the very first time with steady deliberation, inciting them both to sound out in pleasure.

“ _Oh,_ ” Silver gasped, feeling as if he’d been struck. “God, that's-”

Flint thrust into him with more confidence, harder and deeper than before. The soothing touch of Flint’s hand on Silver’s hip was replaced by an iron grip.

“I want to hear you,” Flint said, even as Silver made soft sounds beneath him, fucking into him in earnest.

“God, that feels so good,” Silver moaned, his voice cracking into breathless laughter. “Just like that, fuck, just- just harder, _please_ -”

Flint snapped his hips up, pushing into Silver and letting out a huffed, strained breath. He moaned as he shifted where he knelt between Silver’s thighs, taking hold of him by the hips now. Silver wished, hazily, that his bodily limitations wouldn’t make the physicality of this moment so awkward, so pointed and aware. He wished they could be heedless and reckless, he wished he could wrap both legs around Flint’s middle and take him deeper, pressed into him as close as two bodies could allow. Still, Flint took care with him, aware of Silver’s limitations without lingering incessantly on them and for for that Silver was grateful.

“John,” Flint sighed, pulling out of him slowly before pressing back into him with perfect forcefulness. He bent down to Silver, pressing a hard, hungry kiss to his lips. “What you said earlier when I was watching you- say it again for me.”

Silver moaned, his hands gripping at Flint’s neck. “Christ, _ah-_ I’ve never wanted anyone else like this. Fuck, I want you so badly,” he sighed as Flint thrust against him feverishly. He heard himself cry out at every movement, weak, trembling sounds that sounded foreign even to his own ears. “Only you. It's only ever been you.”

“You have me,” Flint said breathlessly, panting hard against the corner of Silver’s mouth. “I’m here, you have me.” He fucked into Silver feverishly, bracing him into place so all Silver could do was take it with broken, desperate sounds. Silver knew they were both tremendously close, teetering dangerously over the edge. Silver didn’t want this to end. He forced the thought away, swallowing against a knot that rose in his throat without warning. He couldn’t think on the end of this and what it would mean between them. He was shaken by his thoughts when Flint thrust sharply into him and Silver, desperate for foundation, raked his nails along his back. His cock ached painfully between them, incidentally worked at by the friction of their stomachs, the toss of their bodies as they motioned back and forth. It was all becoming too much, too good to last for much longer.

Flint released one of Silver’s hips then, shifting in a way that angled his thrust perfectly. Each press ran electric, tapping expertly at a bundle of nerves that left Silver breathless and overwrought. Silver moaned weakly, his tightly clamped eyes tingling with the threat of tears. Flint took a fistful of Silver’s dark hair into hand with just the right amount of force and the water in Silver’s eyes brimmed over, dampening his cheeks.

“James,” he panted, feeling as if his heart would burst in his chest. “Fuck, James, that’s so good- that’s perfect. I’m going to- I want to come, _please-_ ”

Flint took in a sharp, shaking breath. Silver could feel as Flint nodded breathlessly against his cheek before kissing him on the mouth. He thrust into him again and again, frantic now, losing pace and rhythm as all of his control dissolved. “Alright,” he spoke, his voice hoarse and low. He kissed at the corner of Silver’s mouth, his cheek, his forehead. “Come for me like this, John, just like this-”

Silver gasped, writhing beneath Flint as they fucked against other. With every last thrust of Flint’s hips, Silver pushed down to receive him, gathering as much strength as he could to meet Flint’s force. “James,” he sighed weakly, repeating it over and over like a holyword. “Please-”

It was all too intimate this way, working against each other face to face. Flint kissed him generously, pressing his lips to any touch of skin he could find and it was almost chaste, almost loving how he kissed him. Their hands found each other and Flint intertwined his fingers with Silver’s own, pinning their hands against the mattress and above Silver’s head. Silver turned his face to catch Flint’s mouth with his own, their kiss interrupted by a trembling, breaking sound as Flint hit him just right, and then they were moaning and nearly laughing all in a single breath, dizzy with shared pleasure. They were breathless and easy and Silver could feel Flint smiling into the kiss that carried them into orgasm, everything losing shape as they both were overcome.  
  
It was more than Silver could've imagined. He felt drunk off the haziness of it, suspended out of his thoughts and into a purely physical experience as Flint thrust weakly into him a few, last times- Silver could feel the dampness of his release inside him. He imagined such a feeling would bother him but it didn't- It felt surreal. Silver’s foot ran up the back of Flint’s calf, his hand trembled as it gripped at the line of Flint’s jaw and all of a sudden everything felt so personal, so intimate and irreversible. And Silver hadn't known- he hadn't been warned that there would be someone willing to give so much to him, to take him to the limits of capacity. He hadn’t known that there would be someone who would bring down barriers exclusively for him. But there was and _Silver was kissing him._

Flint pressed soft, exhausted kisses to Silver’s jaw and Silver realized, as if only in the peripheral, that he was still sighing Flint’s name.

Flint nodded, beyond the point of words, and slowly, carefully, pulled out of Silver, earning an aching groan from them both. He rolled off of Silver quickly, mindful to not weigh too heavily on him in his exhaustion. But Silver, unthinkingly, turned on his side and kept a hand on Flint’s waist, his skin cool with sweat. _This is a mistake,_  a quiet voice in Silver’s head mumbled and Silver clamped his eyes shut, inhaling softly. Flint’s hands framed his face, his thumbs swiping at the dampness on Silver’s eyes. _This is a mistake_.

Without knowing how or from when, Silver had nurtured feelings like embers and, having fed the flames, felt as though he were being consumed whole. Silver paid little mind to kisses, to the slurred words spilling out of his mouth, to wandering hands and soft touches. He had gone too far. He had lost himself totally in this. Silver took in a shallow breath, knowing at his core that he could never again go back to the way things had once been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there ya have it! The big scene we've been working up to since the start. I always try to make my sex scenes as factually accurate as I can, but let's be honest here- men's refractory periods are pretty lengthy. Let's just imagine that Silver and Flint got an extra boost of stamina from all that Emotional Struggle. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the chapter! I hope it read well!! Sex scenes still make me so insecure lol but, I'm happy we've finally gotten to this point- the fic isn't done! There's still more to go!! Emotions and more steaminess ahead, I promise. I really would love to hear what you think either in the comments or on tumblr!


	8. Chapter 8

Having stripped the bed and wiped one another down with water and cloth, they had fallen asleep in a winded, tangled heap on the bare bed. Sleep was a fickle thing- Silver had scarcely closed his eyes before a phantom restlessness where his leg had once been jolted him awake once more. 

Silver stared at the ceiling blankly, biting at his lip enough to draw blood. Sticky heat sat on his skin. Silver felt suffocated with the burden of his feelings. He wanted to fix his anger against Flint, to blame, resent, and rail against him- but Flint wasn’t to blame. They had both gotten what they agreed on. Silver had no place to ask for more and he was furious at own desires. Flint had neither worked to incite nor goad his feelings on. Hell, Silver’s feelings were a mystery even to himself- a haunting, formless mass of emotions he was afraid to explore and terrified to name.

Silver needed to leave. He needed to get away now, before Flint would wake and see right through him, exposed and vulnerable like a raw nerve.  _ Stay _ , he had said as they settled into bed. Silver had curled away from him, giving his back to Flint and the unsettling softness of exhaustion and honesty in hair voice.  _ I need to speak to you. What you said to me earlier...Before anything else happens, we need to talk-  _

Silver readied and dressed as silently as possible, nervous at the prospect of Flint waking. What did it matter if Flint had asked him to stay? Silver would leave for their mutual benefit- if he didn't cast these feelings aside, they would bleed into everything Silver touched. Spilling over, they would mar Silver’s clarity, distract him from their fight against the English and Spanish fleets, and endanger his life just as much as it had cursed the Hamiltons before him. He had to leave. If he sparred James Flint a parting single word, Silver would be lost. 

Still, Silver hesitated over the door. Peering over his shoulder, Silver gave Flint’s sleeping form one last, long  look . If circumstances had only been different, Silver would’ve touched Flint. He would’ve spoken softly to him and regarded him with tenderness. He would’ve run a hand along the slope of his back. He would’ve kissed his freckled skin and woken him up with touch. He would’ve fallen back to sleep. He would’ve stayed -

No. None of those half-formed desires mattered. He and Flint had acted within the terms of a strict agreement- a single moment of indulgence and nothing more. Besides, each time Silver had worked to challenge those boundaries, Flint reminded him of the terms- not once but _ three times _ . Flint had agreed to fuck him. He had agreed to something simple and base and he had made it clear to Silver that what had conspired between them wasn’t emotional or even  _ personal _ , but a temporary lapse in judgement.   
  
The door closed silently behind him.  _ The Walrus  _ would need to be readied for its departure from Hispaniola. Silver welcomed distraction, but he was desperate to leave- this island now carried the memory of all they had done. Silver was anxious to leave it all behind. If he could only get himself off this godforsaken island, the feelings that pulled tight in Silver’s chest would wane into memory, lessening like an island on the edging horizon- with enough distance and time, everything would vanish from sight. 

* * *

 

There had been plenty of work to be done and Silver welcomed the distraction. Since the battle with the English,  _ The Walrus  _ had lost a great deal of men- while Madi would support their forces, there was only so much one could ask of another without strain. They had known theirs would be a remarkable sacrifice and, while it bothered Silver to regard men as dispensable, it had been a price they were willing to pay. News of their outlandish victory had spread like wildfire, making the search for new recruits to replace the fallen all the easier. 

Evening was already setting crimson into the sky when Silver finally made it to the piers where  _ The Walrus  _ waited,  nearly ready to be divorced from her moorings. The crew lined on and off the ship in a single file, carrying crates of supplies onto the ship. Amongst them were a good many unfamiliar faces- though harkening new men to join their ranks typically took a few days, Silver wasn’t shocked to learn that Billy had kept busy throughout their respite. 

“What's left to be done before we sail?" Silver asked as he neared him, a lodger of new names tucked dutifully beneath in his arm.

"Hello to you, too," Billy smiled. He watched as Silver scanned the crowd, as if in search for someone. “We’re just about ready to go. This place isn’t Nassau, but we’ve got some cargo to haul aboard now- gunpowder, salt, ale, the like. It’s not an awful lot, but we needed supplies. Once that's all loaded and Flint gives the word, we’re off.”

Silver nodded, his attention divided. He knew Billy was staring, reluctant to broach some other subject- there was quiet curiosity to him, the sort that would respectfully dissent at the first sign of resistance. 

“You know,” Billy finally spoke, minding his tone, “I haven’t seen him in some time. No one's seen much of you, either, these past few days. The men have begun to tell tales.”

“What’ve they been saying?” Silver asked. 

If Billy noticed the seriousness in Silver’s tone, he feigned ignorance. Instead, he gave him a wry smile. “That you were busying yourself with blood magic and voodoo- ever since your alliance with Mr. Scott’s daughter, it’s all the men ever speak on when you up and vanish. It’s nonsense, but they’re not above trite shit.”

"Is that so?" Silver turned to Billy, the line of his mouth tugged into a frown. "We're an island away from the battle and chaos of Nassau, lodging in a fucking  _ brothel _ and the men think I’ve spent my time preening for the devil.”

“Well, if not that, then what have you been doing?” Billy asked, the humor in his voice wilting at the edge in Silver’s expression. "Look, if you don't want to speak on it, I won’t press. We’re just about done anyways; I did as you suggested earlier and had the men act quickly- we were all just about half-convinced we’d be staying another day here, what with word of departure coming so late into the afternoon.”

Silver softened, aware that he had asked quite a lot of the young man beside him. “I’ve been irresponsible. If we were to leave today, I should’ve tended to the work that needed to be done with time- instead, I had you make up for it in haste. It won’t happen again.”  
  
“I believe you,” Billy spoke, offering Silver a thin smile. He looked onto the crew, the necessity of work pulling at his attention. Then, he returned his focus to Silver, as if in remembrance of something. “Before I forget- we’ve got a good deal of new men, but there’s been some talk- did Flint personally see to the youngest of them joining our crew?” 

Silver nodded. He was suddenly wary of talk, nervous at the prospect of stories circulating amongst the men that would land too closely to the truth. “It’s complicated. If you’re concerned about how young he is, Flint  seems to believe we can work around that-  he’s got all your stature, Billy. Inexperienced as he may be, we could use the force.”

“No, it’s nothing about that,” Billy said, rubbing his hand against the nape of his neck. He looked hesitant to speak, almost sheepish, and Silver was suddenly reminded of Billy’s age. “It’s just- well, he keeps  _ staring _ at me. I’ve started to wonder if he’s got some issue with me already.” 

Silver laughed at that, even to his own surprise. He found Emmanuel easily- the boy wore novelty like a brightly colored flag, naive excitement and insecurity rolling off of him like waves. It would wear in time and lessen with experience but, until then, the crew would take advantage of his need to be accepted; even now, as he helped load cargo onto the Walrus, it was evident that he was overcompensating, doing twice as much work as the seasoned men behind him. There were some men, in fact, who weren’t working at all. Probably, Silver thought, because those who had survived their last battle thought they were owed some laziness- they would let Emmanuel do his share of the work and then some. 

The young man tensed as Silver approached him. In truth, Silver didn't know how to regard Emmanuel- it was strange to deal with him casually, when he had unknowingly played the catalyst to Silver’s current dilemma. But, it was clear that Emmanuel would need a sign of amicability if they were to work together without issue. The envy that Silver let bleed into their previous interactions must have read as apprehension, disgust of different form. The usual measure of nervousness that most men directed to Silver was doubled in Emmanuel, who must’ve felt a dangerous vulnerability at Silver’s hand. Pirates were no strangers to broken social norms, but there was little confidence to be had with them all the same. Tolerance was the cheap imitation of acceptance- it was easily breached if one hadn’t the tools to demand respect. 

“You can slow down, you know,” Silver said, his voice intentionally light. “We won’t set sail any quicker just because you’re rushing. Until we get word from the captain, we’re anchored to this beach together.” 

Emmanuel’s mouth opened and closed, his brows furrowed as he searched for words. “I need to show I can help,” he said, his English curved by his accent. 

Silver shifted his weight, catching as Emmanuel gave his bad leg a lingering look. “Why do you think we’re keeping you around?”

Emmanuel’s face flushed red. “Because . . . the captain holds pity for me. Because I am more fortunate than I deserve.”

Silver raised a brow. “Do you truly believe that? Emmanuel, if we didn’t think you had something to offer us, we wouldn’t have allowed you a space on this ship.”

Emmanuel blinked and nodded. “Yes, but -”

“Whatever moment you shared with the captain or I is of little consequence, especially to this crew. If you make up for the laziness of those beside you, they’ll demand more from you and work less themselves. Do you understand we’ve too much to lose to have a lazy crew?”

Emmanuel swallowed. “Yes, I understand.”

“You have a right to your place on this ship as much as the men beside you,” Silver continued. He watched as Emmanuel’s eyes widened and his posture eased. “Here, we are are equal. No matter your secrets, you don’t have to work twice as hard to earn your place here. It is yours just as long as you respect our rules and carry your weight.”

The younger man readied to speak, but then his focus shifted beyond Silver entirely, his eyes anchored on something or someone behind him. Silver knew it was Flint without having to turn to acknowledge him.

“I’d like a word with you,” Flint said, brushing past Silver and walking, instead towards to board  _ The Walrus _ . “Alone.”

Giving Emmanuel a parting nod, Silver watched as he hurriedly walked away from them. He had to smile at that. Whatever his nativity, Emmanuel was clever enough to sense when a storm was brewing and run in the opposite direction.

Silver breathed in deeply, giving his leg a shake. It was aching already- too many long nights and too much weight on it. Still, he stalked behind Flint hurriedly, determined to match his strides; He knew Flint well enough to see the deliberation in how quickly he was walking- until now, Flint maintained an unspoken awareness for Silver’s limitations. If he was walking this quickly ahead of him without as much as a single look behind him, it was because he wanted Silver to suffer the small indignity of limping behind.

Silver shut the door soundlessly behind him. For the first time since the early morning, they faced one another plainly, albeit from opposing corners of the cabin. The cold, irritated tension in Flint’s form was so keenly familiar, his eyes narrowed, his lips tightly repressed. All of his earlier softness was gone. 

“I waited for you,” said Flint, his voice clipped. “If you never intended to stay, you could’ve told me so. It would’ve saved me a good deal of wasted time.” 

Silver felt his lips twist into a frown. “There were things to be done. ‘When the storm passes, we’re leaving immediately’- those were your exact words. The storm passed. I was working to make our departure today possible.”

Flint released the raw scrape of laugh. “That’s an incredibly practical excuse, Silver, but we need to speak all the same.” 

A resentful, petty retort roared to life inside him, insistent and unwelcome.  _  It’s Silver now, is it?  _ Silver swallowed it down, feigning steady indifference. “What is there to speak about?” 

Flint gave him a long stare. A tense silence stretched between them as Flint considered his words, his voice steady and detached. “We have too much at stake to circle around each other like children. For the sake of the crew, for the sake of our aims and the blood that will be spilt to achieve them, we need to speak about- what we did. I thought that much was clear when I asked you to stay.” 

The falter in Flint’s words lingered between them both. Silver grew very still, his lips forming a flat line. This shouldn’t have bothered him so much- he had left Flint’s bed with a bitter suspicion of what he had to say, but Silver couldn’t reconcile the disappointment he felt at being right. Flint was only speaking to him to reiterate what he had said so many times before: this was never to happen again and that no one was to know about what they had done. 

He steeled himself, mirroring Flint’s sharp indifference. “As far as that’s concerned, you have nothing to worry about. What happened between us hardly matters now.”

“Is that so?” Flint spoke, his tone strange. He searched Silver’s face with a discomforting intensity. Silver shifted beneath that gaze, his thoughts chaotic. Could Flint see through him so easily? Was he looking at him like that to catch him in his dishonesty, to discover a liar’s tell?

Silver spoke past the tightness in his chest, shrugging his shoulders dismissively. “You said it yourself, this was only going to happen once- just a guilty indulgence that began on drunkenness and impulse. It was never serious. I didn’t stay to speak to you because I don’t see the point in lingering on it anymore than we have to.”

Flint nodded, making a noncommittal sound in response. He stared steadily at his hands, fiddling quickly over his lap as he leaned against his writing desk. Silver recognized that Flint’s focus had turned away from him and curled inward, his brows furrowed with thought before he rubbed his face with his palms. He wore exhaustion and frustration in dual measure, seeming as though he had grown weary of a problem that had overrun its course. “Right,” he said thickly. “Then we’ll never speak on this again.”

It was all a load of lies. Silver almost resented how readily Flint accepted them, as though he was disappointed at not being found out. He frowned, his anger now pointed at that quieted and secret part of himself that still clung so stupidly to the poison of foolish hope. He spoke again, almost for his own benefit, desperate to dash any last shard of hope or reluctance to pieces. “Seeing neither of us intend to make the same mistake twice, I think it best we move forward as though it never happened.  You and I will just have to forget about this entirely. ” 

Flint didn’t respond. He didn’t protest. Having not even bothered to raise his gaze off the floor, Silver almost suspected he hadn’t heard him. Or, perhaps, that he had listened and Silver’s words simply elicited no response. A strange, chilled emptiness settled into Silver’s gut. He readied to leave, the sound of his dull footsteps against the silence of the room. 

“Let me ask you something,” Flint spoke. He crossed the room in slow, reluctant strides, joining Silver as he stood over the cabin door. Though they now stood a mere arm’s length apart from each other, the scant space between them seemed insurmountable. It felt, however impossibly, like an expanse Silver could never hope to cross.

Flint continued, his voice low. “Do you really believe this is something either of us can forget?”

Silver raised his eyes to meet Flint’s own. He reached for the doorknob blindly, wary of the way Flint moved forward in response and there, over the cool metal of the doorknob, their fingers brushed for a single, unintended moment. Silver whisked his hand away quickly, as if he’d touched fire. 

He willed his voice harder and steadier than before because it hurt to speak it- because everything  _ ached  _ now, as if this separation were a bodily one, and something wicked and selfish in Silver wanted to hurt Flint for the suffering. “Yes,” he answered, “I really believe that. You can forget anything if you have to- if you want badly enough to forget.” 

Flint kept silent. His bent his head, his mouth tugging into a thin frown. Silver watched as something shifted in him- though he couldn’t decipher it, something flickering over Flint’s face, something flashing in his narrowed eyes. He nodded and Silver could hear as he breathed in, long and deep. “You’re right,” he murmured, brushed past Silver to take a new grip on the door. “If all the supplies are aboard, have the crew settled and ready to sail as quickly as possible. We’ve wasted enough time on this island as it is.” 

Silver stared unguardedly at Flint, knowing his intentions had met their mark- the space between them was made smaller, but Flint’s hand was tentative over the doorknob. He gave it a slow turn and everything that remained unspoken between them hung so heavily it could practically be  _ felt _ . Silver felt his mouth run dry, his tongue darting out to wet his lips as they both stood, stunted and somber over the door. Flint’s stare, now sharp and nearly glaring, dropped from Silver’s eyes. And maybe they had lingered over the line of his mouth, but Silver couldn’t be sure- the moment vanished as quickly as it appeared, hollow as a trick of the eye. Flint turned away quickly and skirted out of the room, leaving the door open behind him. 

* * *

Silver stood still as stone. He carded his hands through his hair, his breath strangled. Being around Flint was starting to feel like staring into the sun- it left Silver flinching back and reeling, desperate for the respite of looking away. He needed out of his own head. He needed quiet, numbness, a distraction- anything to quiet the chaos in his head, tightly wound and ready to snap.

He wanted to be alone but this ship was so fucking  _ small _ . They had a full crew again and, by consequence, every nook and cranny of  _ The Walrus  _ would be occupied. He scanned the room quietly, internalizing its stillness. Everything bled of him. The meticulousness of his writing desk, the solemn bareness of the walls, the hoard of books that bespoke of Flint’s intelligence, his perchance for stories. 

Then, Silver laid eyes what draped over Flint’s chair- the wrinkled fabric of Flint’s clothing, the shirt and the pants he had on this morning. The clothes he had taken off in front of Silver before taking him to bed. Silver tensed, heat flushing to his face. 

Unthinkingly, Silver shut door behind him. He swallowed thickly, pressing his back against the door and locking it for good measure. Silver knew this was reckless- needlessly and dangerously so. If Flint returned or if anyone felt his absence, Silver would have to explain why he had taken the liberty of staying in the captain’s quarters alone. But he felt as though he was processing what had happened between them on the island viscerally, as if for the very first time. He needed this now, just for a single, harmless moment. It would never happen again. 

The way Flint had looked at him before leaving him played over and over in Silver’s head. Flint had agreed so easily to moving on but, for only a moment, it looked as if he still  _ wanted _ him. Silver knew better than to violate the boundary he had only just established, but he could still  _ feel _ him. Breathing sharply, Silver tried to hush the memory of what Flint had felt like inside him- but god, how could he forget it? Only a few hours ago, Flint had him seeing stars. Silver clamped his eyes shut, overwhelmed by the memory of him, naked and panting and pressing into him, overwhelming and caging him as he had fucked into him just right. Silver still felt a dull sensitivity where Flint had opened him up whenever he walked and he lavished in the ache of it.

Silver gasped as his left hand palmed over his cock. He wanted so badly to be above this; he knew that indulging this weakness would only prolong its effects, but his mind continually drifted to Flint, to the memory of his mouth, his hands,  _ everything _ . Flint had taken him, put his mouth on him, touched him in ways Silver hadn’t imagined. Flint had even drawn a thoughtless obedience in Silver and he hadn’t expected that- he hadn’t expected to enjoy submitting to him as much as he had. He hadn’t expected to beg. Flint fucked him graciously, giving Silver as much as he could take, and Silver  _ felt _ how much Flint had wanted him. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt genuinely wanted by anyone in quite that way- part of him suspected no one else ever had. 

He continued to palm at himself and his body began to sway at its own accord. Friction wasn’t enough, not with layers of clothing dulling the contact he so badly needed. Silver tugged at his clothing, pulling his pants down to his thighs as he took himself in hand- he was already flushed and hardening with arousal on the memory of Flint alone.

Silver wondered bitterly what Flint would do if he found him like this, jerking himself off in his cabin- if Flint would strike at him or rush to him, if he’d feel enticed or disgusted. He dug the nails of his free hand into the flesh of his thigh, his mind racing with the thought of Flint kissing him, biting into the junction of his neck, taking a fistful of hair as he had done when they were in bed together. Beneath the dull hum of the ocean rushing against the ship’s walls, the only sounds in Flint’s cabin were the slick sound of damp flesh and that of Silver’s shallowing breaths. He thought of the way Flint’s cock felt, the hard heat of it, raw and deep inside him. Silver had wanted so badly to suck him off, to take him into his mouth just as Flint had done for him. Silver now knew what it was to have Flint’s release inside of him, hot and pulsing, but he wanted to know the  _ taste _ of it. 

Then, Silver realized that opportunity would never come. The thought hit him with a pang to the chest. Everything had now changed between them and, somehow, nothing had- Silver swallowed against the knot in his throat, resentful at the sting in the bridge of his nose. The truth was he was lost to this a long time ago, long before Hispaniola- the truth was he had wanted James Flint much longer than he felt brave enough to account for. Silver struggled to catch his breath, forcing himself to still against his body’s natural climb. His cock was leaking steadily into his hand and he felt feverish, weak, suddenly overwhelmed by how hot the room was. 

 

Slowly, Silver released a shaking breath. His heartbeat trembled in his fingertips. The need he felt was painful, pulsing, desperate for attention. He realized he was wasting borrowed time, that this would need to end quickly and quietly, before his absence was felt by anyone on board. He rested his focus on Flint’s clothing, the sight of it acting as an anchor for his thoughts. He lingered on the thought of Flint’s mouth on him, tracing the memory of it with his hand. His breath caught in his chest and Silver took hold of cock with new focus and stroked it down slowly from head to base and back again. Flint had been slow, had worked at him with patient deliberation. Silver did his best to work in imitation of him, his thumb running along the underside of his length, tracing gently over every engorged vein. 

“Fuck,” Silver rasped out, his hips moving at a slow, steady pace that nearly pained him. He closed his hand around the head of his cock, slickening his palm with precome before sliding his hand into the hollow of his curved hand, enveloping his member in tight pressure. His eyes fluttered closed at the memory of Flint’s hot, wet mouth around him. 

Silver leaned against the door for support with a dull  _ thump _ . His imagination had nothing on the reality of Flint kissing him, stroking him, fucking into him on the bed of that goddamned brothel house. He began to quicken his pace, swallowing down the noises that rose against the aching in his throat. Silver could feel himself escalating, his breaths growing harsher, his movements more erratic. His leg ached at the tension on his knees but Silver worked at himself with unfaltering intent. 

Silver shuddered, his slick thumb tracing over the sensitive head of his cock. He reached further down with his free hand, the jacking rhythm of his hand hiccuping and falling out of pace when his fingers neared his opening. He touched himself experimentally, shocked by his looseness, wracked over by the sensitivity he still felt there. He traced the ring of muscle carefully with his index finger, sighing as he pushed duly inside, slow and careful. His mind was flooded with all that he still wanted and here he was in Flint’s room, surrounded by everything that spoke of him, enveloped in the phantom presence of him. Silver pressed into himself further, breaching further than before and thickening the penetration with another finger, timing the push and pull of his fingers with the work of his other hand, still tight and sliding quick around his cock. 

Silver gasped as his fingers curled just right, pressing against an unmistakable bundle of nerves. Flint had touched him in places so deep and far-running. The memory of it had hooked onto Silver like sharp teeth and it seemed impossible to forget, impossible to dismiss. But Silver knew it wasn’t. He bit his lip sharply, clamping his mouth shut and muffling the groan that threatened to rip out of him. No, he thought, these memories would fade and Silver would forget in time. The image of Flint’s nakedness would distort, no matter how much he had tried to commit it to memory. He would forget the precise rawness of his name in Flint’s mouth. He would lose hold on the exact details of that rainy morning. The faint bruises from where Flint held him would heal. The body would erase him and so, too, would the mind. Everything that happened between them with dull with time and distance, like how even the brightest of dreams inevitably lost their color.    
  
Silver didn’t want that. He didn’t want to forget, he didn’t want to lose a single detail of what had conspired between them. He was working himself over too quickly to last now, just moments away from crossing the precipice and  _ falling _ . He felt himself nearly done, nearly there, and it felt sharp and unbearably good, but even pleasure was colored with a sort of nameless sorrow, dark and deep. He felt himself caught in an undertow, as if some awful, unseen force was pulling him apart from an obscured underneath.  _ You have me _ , Flint had told him hours ago and, god, Silver wanted so desperately to hear that again now, as he -  _ You have me, I’m right here _ . 

It happened suddenly and all at once: one final touch to his prostate, one last, erratic thrust into the slick tunnel of his hand and Silver’s lips parted with a broken sob, every muscle in his body going taut as he reached climax, spilling forward into his hand. Orgasm bought him only a moment of thoughtlessness and the moment passed all too quickly, a salve too weak for a man who felt himself burning alive. He wiped his hands over the clammy skin of his thighs, his heartbeat thumping erratically in his chest. It infuriated him to be robbed of his dignity this way, to be robbed of his strength and his resolve. He dressed quickly, forcing himself to work through the tired haziness of his body, the muddied heaviness of his thoughts. 

He listened intently for the sound of someone nearing the door and, when he heard none, unlocked the door with a quiet click. Silver took a deep, shuddering breath- his chest felt tight, like a coil stressed to the point of snapping. Silver wiped the back of his hand over the dampness of his brow, the wetness that had gathered at his eyes. Silver took a step forward, his hand steady over the doorknob. He pressed his eyes closed briefly and then he stood upright, feigning the steadiness he would need to project to those around him until it hardened like a mask made of steel. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy. First of all, please let me apologize for the delay on this chapter- aside from the fact that writing this chapter largely felt like pulling teeth, I was going through a really rough time personally. Panic attacks, lack of sleep, personal issues- the whole nine. I'm sorry it's been so long, but please know I've tried my very best to pull through and keep this story rolling. I don't want to give up on this or you, readers, so please don't give up on me!!
> 
> Anyways, this mutual pining shit would go so much easier if these two idiots just talked it out honesty, you know? They want each other so bad. Flint wants Silver SO BAD. They're gonna get there tho. I promise. Please tell me if you liked the chapter, gang! I hope the wait was at least a little bit worth it.


	9. Chapter 9

Weeks had passed. Because time marched along without pause, Silver turned to the familiar face of who he once was, before attachment had wrangled his heart. Forgetting what had happened between Flint and himself had been a needless bluff; he could no more blot it out of his memory than he could better his leg. But he would have to play the part and, to do so, Silver needed the distraction of work. So he pushed himself harder, tended to the crew more thoroughly, went above and beyond his duties.

 _The Walrus_ flourished under his doubled attention, but Silver had begun to sense a growing unease in the crew. Those who knew him well looked to him with cloaked concern. Though Silver would deny it, he was putting himself under tremendous strain. It was only now, after a recent altercation with Algerine pirates at the Barbary coast, that Silver’s exhaustion was beginning to show itself in combat- he had been weak. His strength had faltered. In the heat of a fight, Billy had rushed to his side and worked to defend him. Since then, both Billy and Flint had taken to looking to him with a sort of anxious wariness, as if waiting for an inevitable collapse. Still, they knew better than to approach Silver with their worries.

The same could not be said, however, for the queen of Maroon Island.

They had docked on her territory to replenish supplies and chart their future courses. The work was wearisome and mostly interesting but when the hours didn’t drag, they skipped forward. There was so much to be done and so little time to accomplish it all- still, Madi had insisted on pausing to share a meal.

"You look ill,” Madi spoke, her voice still and uncritical as she finished her drink. "When did you last allow yourself some rest?"

Silver smiled, repressing the urge to shift where he sat. He didn’t want to speak on this, but he valued her honesty all the same. "This may surprise you, but rest is hard to come by in my line of work."

The line of her mouth tugged into a frown. “All your work will be for naught if you don’t tend after your needs. I’ve had heard stories of the last fight you led- you’re giving those around you cause to worry.”  
  
“With all that these men say about you, you should know better than to give stories any weight,” Silver scoffed. Then, catching the edge in his retort, he softened. “I apologize. That was entirely uncalled for.”

Madi took another long sip of her drink, condensation dripping from the cool metal of her cup. “That was uncalled for, yes, but it’s only natural. You’re running from something, John Silver. You carry yourself like a man who feels himself pressed into a corner and you’re striking at anyone who treads too closely. Now, don’t look at me like that- it’s an observation, not an insult. Someone ought to be honest with you.”

Silver fell silent. He had nothing to say.

Madi stretched her hand across the table, waiting for Silver’s silent affirmation before taking his hand. "My doctors saw to you when you first arrived to this island. I know of your leg, of how you’ve nearly infected it again. All the medicines in the world will do nothing for you if you aggravate your injuries this way."

Silver smiled at her. Madi had an uncanny ability to sympathize without pity or patronization. Still, he knew nothing he could say would shake the concern in her eyes. “I’m doing only what’s necessary. There’s work to be done, Madi- how can I rest? With what time? Our stakes are only getting higher and it stands to reason that I should carry a heavier load because of that.”

Madi looked away from Silver, clearly dissatisfied by his answer. They sat together on the veranda of her quarters, looking outwards towards the islanders. Members of the crew were mixed amongst them, conversing and toiling under the same setting sun. Silver followed her line of vision, his focus resting on a group of small children singing noisily a few ways off. “Our stakes _are_ only getting higher, you’re right,” she said, speaking gently. “Which is why you cannot do this to yourself and all those who count you as a friend and leader. If there is something you are trying to avoid, you can confide in me. You know this. I have held your confidences before and have never betrayed them.”

Silver frowned, unsure of what to say. He looked outward as Madi did and found, in the far distance, an all-too familiar form amongst the crowds. There James Flint stood, his face turned away and obscured from plain sight, his attention bent to some conversation between a few members of their crew. Part of Silver felt he should look away. The other couldn’t stop staring.

When he finally returned his attention to Madi, Silver realized she had caught onto what he had been looking at. Her eyes lingered on Flint, narrowing in a sort of cool, unreadable expression, and then met with Silver’s own.

“Months ago, you spoke to me about him,” spoke Madi. “The prospect of understanding him scared you- you spoke of it as if his darkness would swallow you whole. Is he what has you this way?”

He forced himself to smile, hoist the impression of easy bewilderment on his face. “It's not like that at all,” he spoke, his tone suggesting a sort of shock at her suggestion. “I wish I knew what to say to you, but truly there's nothing wrong- certainly not to that measure.”

A beat of silence rested between them. Silver disliked lying to her, but he gave her hand a friendly squeeze, waiting for her to fall for the bluff. Her silence was unnerving all the same.

“I’m not going to attack you for admitting that you’re struggling through some problem,” Madi spoke at last, her voice even. “But neither am I here to play mother to you. Only promise me you will rest tonight. The route you’ll be taking from here will leave _The Walrus_ steadily at sea for a few days- there’s no reason for you to strain yourself then. Leave your men to watch the sea. Take the medicines we give you. Try not to stand when it is not necessary. That’s all I ask, from one friend to another.”

Silver was quiet for a long moment. “Is that what we are then, friends?”

She smiled, her dark eyes warmed by genuine affection and a touch of sadness. “Yes, I’d like to think so.”

“That's a dangerous thing to have in this sort of world, don't you think? What with all the dangers and the risks of what we do to achieve our aims and protect those under our jurisdiction- attachment is a tricky thing to have, isn't it?”

“Certainly it is,” spoke Madi. “But attachments are essential, John- you can live your life bitterly in avoidance of them, I suppose. But if you embrace them, they give life an irreplaceable brilliance.”

“And what good is all that brilliance when it can't last?” Silver asked, his tone betraying a spiral of emotions hidden deep. “People come and go, Madi- by the hands of time or death or division. Clinging to people...that sounds like complicating the inevitable.”

Madi laughed, actually laughed as if Silver had something infinitely amusing. “Nothing is inevitable. Surely you know that.”

She couldn't have known it, but Silver recognized a familiarity in her words- he had once spoke them to the very man whose name remained unspoken between them. _Nothing is inevitable here._ It had been so easy to speak it when Flint’s seemed resign to accept his death. Now, it felt impossible to apply such a sentiment to life.

He looked down at their hands, still touching however slightly. Silver recognized, then, why Flint had confused the nature of their relationship- his relationship with Madi was singular in its affection and trust, but it was an entirely platonic bond. Even their hands over each other’s, lacked the heat and weight of love, the bite of attraction- and by no fault on her own end. Madi was by all means an incredible woman- her posture was molded by the grace she carried within, but it bespoke of an inner ferocity. Silver felt he would never understand how one could deal with the world as she did- nobly, without the thirst of greed or power, without even the shadow of wickedness. He gently gave her hand a squeeze and readied to stand, their conversation over. He looked over her and, though the thought surprised him, Silver was struck by the realization that, in a different world, he could have loved her. Perhaps, had life regarded him differently, he could have nearly deserved her.

* * *

Silver honored her request. The ship creaked and hummed with the toil of the ocean as _The Walrus_ sailed steadily through the night. The sea was soft and yielding and the men seemed all too eager at the prospect of Silver taking rest- whether their enthusiasm was best taken as a compliment or offense, Siver couldn't be too sure. Still, he settled into the the quiet dimness of the gun decks, settled between the empty hammocks where the crew would come to rest much later- he appreciated the rare moment of isolation, knowing well that Billy had probably orchestrated it so that the men remained above. Silver stretched his good leg out in front of him, having already taken off the iron boot. Madi’s medicines could only do so much; he took a swig from his cup, hoping that alcohol would numb what remained of the pain.

“That must taste like shit.”

Silver jumped at the sudden sound of a familiar voice. He looked to Flint with wide eyes, watching as he emerged from the darkness with something obscure in his hand. “Christ, you scared the shit out of me,” Silver sighed, moving over as Flint sat beside him. “At least I have the decency to announce myself when I enter a room.”

“Well,” Flint replied, giving Silver’s outstretched leg a pointed glance, “we can't all have metal legs, can we?”

“I don't know, I think it's worth a shot- Imagine the stories they'd tell about a fearsome crew of invalids.”

Flint rolled his eyes, laughing lightly. Silver recognized the deliberate easiness in how Flint carried himself; whatever he was here for, it was clear Flint wanted him to know he meant no harm. Still, Silver couldn’t quite decipher what precisely he _was_ here for.

“What brings you to my quarters?” he asked, sweeping grandly to the darkness.  

Flint shrugged. “Truthfully, I vastly prefer my own but, when I went looking, I found you here. If you prefer sitting amongst the hammocks, who am I to throw stones?”

Silver immediately thought on the last time he had been in Flint’s room and what he had done there. He was grateful that the darkness of the room hid the immediate flush in his face. “Is there something wrong?” he spoke instead, the humor immediately gone from his voice.

Flint shook his head. He seemed to be avoiding Silver’s gaze, his eyes anchored on the item in his hands. “Not at all, I just- “ Flint paused, as if seeking the proper words. “I only meant to offer you something better than that pisspoor excuse of a drink you have right now."

Silver took hold of what Flint extended to him, taking the item out of Flint’s bag and unwrapping it- a single bottle of wine, visibly aged and weathered even in the dark. “What’s this?”

“Some call it wine,” Flint said, looking to Silver with the hint of a smile. “You know, whatever your flaws, I didn’t take you to be _uncultured,_ Silver.”

Now it was Silver’s turn to make a point of rolling his eyes. “What I mean to say is where did this come from?”

“I’ve had it for some time now,” said Flint. “I suppose I never found occasion to open it. I thought maybe you could put it to better use than I, seeing as you’re drinking anyway.” A moment passed before he spoke again. “Is your leg any better since those doctors tended to you? I hope they’re not putting Howell out of a job.”

“Hardly,” Silver said, his mouth twisted bitterly. “That’s why I’m down here in the first place. I’m doing this out of necessity- it’s not like I’m trying to make a habit out of drinking alone.”

He took the bottle firmly in hand and made short work of opening it. The cork was old, giving way to pressure much easier than Silver expected. Truly, Flint must’ve had this bottle for quite some time and that realization filled Silver with wordless gratitude. He understood the gift as the olive branch Flint had intended it to be- they had maintained an awkward tension for weeks now, speaking to each other sparingly and only when necessary. Now, Flint had not only taken Silver’s pain in mind, but he had probably taken the effort to seek him out in order save Silver the trouble of walking unnecessary.

Silver realized, then, that Flint had forgone glasses. He looked to him with wide eyes. “You didn’t mean for me to drink this alone, did you?”

Flint stared at him. “No,” he said awkwardly, as if, only by giving the question his full attention was he coming to the answer. “I didn’t. I meant to keep you company if you wanted it.”

Slowly, Silver nodded. He downed the contents of his cup with a grimace before pouring himself a nearly brimming portion. If Flint noticed, he decided against mentioning it, only accepting the bottle from Silver after it was extended back to him. “What are we drinking to?” Silver asked, clearing his throat. “Don’t fucking say we’re drinking to my good health.”

Flint took a modest drink from the bottle. “Well, fuck if I know,” he said, flippantly. “To Nassau, to this war we’re waging against England, to you and I and this goddamn crew, I don’t know-”

Silver bumped Flint’s shoulder deliberately. “That’s a clever idea,” he said, his head already beginning to buzz with the effects of the drink. “To you and I and this goddamn crew.”

They raised their glasses, but there was a slight wariness in Flint’s face, his body in tension as he watched Silver drink. When Silver spoke again, Flint looked to him with surprise. “Tell me something,” Silver spoke, “do you plan to make it out of all this alive?”

Flint held himself taut. “Are we back to talking about how you’ll see the end of me?”

“No, I just want you to answer honestly,” spoke Silver. “Do you think you’re going to make it out of this one alive?”

Silver could see Flint measure his words, as if testing the boundaries of his answer. “I don’t know. I’ve faced giants before and lived to tell the tale. I suppose that if I don’t, my death would’ve been long overdue.”

He took another long drink as his bad leg ached sharply with the rocking motion of the ship. “And if you do  make it, what then? What becomes of the feared Captain Flint once Nassau is reclaimed?”

This time, Flint’s eyes remained on the bottle, his brows creased with thought. “Then, I suppose I disappear. I’m under no illusions, I know my function here will have run its course. These men barely tolerate me as captain, they’d lynch me as sovereign. The wise thing would be to leave that function to another- someone who I believe has the same aspirations for Nassau that I do. Probably you.”

Silver took one last drink of his cup before its contents emptied. He extended the cup to Flint in a silent request for more, ignoring the reluctance that gave way to compliance. “One way or another,” Flint continued, filling Silver’s cup only half way, “I suppose you’ll see the end of Captain Flint after all.”

What began as a pained glint in Silver’s eye spread as a grimace over his mouth. In the silence, they could hear the muffled voices of men above them, the continued humming of the ocean against the walls of the ship. So much noise, Silver thought, that had nothing to do with either of them or the honesty of this moment that pained him.

“How about you?” Flint asked, his tone unfairly conversational. “You spoke of it once, but that was ages ago- I can’t imagine you leading a quiet life now.”

Silver wanted to shake him, to laugh at and ridicule him- this wasn’t an easy thing to speak on. This wasn’t trivial. He regretted having steered the conversation to a topic that filled him with such nervous bitterness. If Flint survived, he wanted a quiet end. He wanted peace and silence and the mundanity of a retired life. Silver realized, then, that he would follow him there if he were only welcomed to it. It was a pathetic thought, weak and stupid even to him. But it rang with an inexhaustible truth all the same.

“Well, I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” Silver said, head bent and eyes shut. “I still have my obligations to the crew. I still depend on them- hell, whatever comes of this war we’re waging, it won’t change the fact that this is the only place where I matter. I need this position, these men, these duties- I have nothing else. So, no, I don’t think I get a quiet life anymore.”

Flint stared hard at Silver then, the dim light of the room revealing a tension in his jaw and the deep, hard line of a frown. It was clear to both of them that this wasn’t just the alcohol or the pain talking- Silver had been on the edge for days now, for weeks, and Flint had unintentionally pushed him over. Whatever amicability they were attempting with one another had soured instead.

Seconds pass and eventually Flint speaks, his voice clipped. “That's not true.”

“You said it yourself,” Silver shot back. “If I walk out of this ship, where the fuck am I going where I’m _needed_? Not pitied, not tolerated- needed and respected.”

“I said that to _hurt_ you,” Flint said. “I said it so you wouldn't leave when you had a thousand reasons to do so- you could walk out of this at any moment and you could take everything here with you and there wouldn’t be a goddamn thing I could do about it. It’d be simple. The men would follow you. They would rally behind you, probably applaud you for the decision.” Flint cast his focus to the floor, his grip tight around the bottle. “I said that because I needed you to think you were the vulnerable one- so you could stay and feel you needed this as much as I needed you.”

Silver breathed in deeply, closing his eyes because he could not trust himself to look onto Flint and not touch him then. His mind felt foggy already, his focus blurred around the edges, but he put all his effort into keeping his speech steady. “Some talk this turned out to be,” he said with a pitiful laugh. “Sitting in the dark, drinking alone, going back and forth about shit like this- we’re a fucking depressing lot.”

Flint shoved against him, bumping their shoulders and giving Silver a rueful smile. “You could’ve asked me anything. It’s not my fault you’re a shoddy drunk.”

Silver laughed. They were closer now than before, their sides perfectly aligned as they sat beside each other. It was the slightest of touches, without any real consequence or heady suggestion, but Silver enjoyed it all the same- he liked the security of Flint’s shoulder against his own. He liked feeling the slight draw and release of Flint’s breathing. The solidity of Flint’s leg against Silver’s own was warm and comforting. Yes, Silver knew he shouldn’t have indulged in the contact- he wished he hadn’t cared enough to notice how they were touching. But he did. Any sliver of touch delighted him.

“What sort of things should I ask you, then?” he asked, his voice low.

Flint shook his head, released a breathless laugh, and Silver got his first glimpse of what bashfulness looked like on him. “I don’t know. Anything, I suppose- I could tell you about the ship or members of the crew you hadn’t met or-”

“Tell me about yourself,” Silver said then, not minding the surprised look on Flint’s face or the way something in him instinctively shifted at being taken unawares. “Something I don’t already know,” Silver murmured, raising the brim of his cup to his mouth.

In the darkness, Silver could hear Flint take a breath. Though he kept his focus on his drink, Silver could imagine the way Flint’s brows would furrow with thought, the way he frowned as he always did when he was racking his mind for the precise words to say. “There’s isn’t much to say,” Flint said after a moment. “I can’t think of anything of consequence that you don’t already know.” Flint shifted where he sat but, to Silver’s relief, didn’t move away from him. “At this point, with all I’ve already told you- with all that we’ve done...I think you know me better than anyone else in this world.”

Silver laughed and pitched forward, stretching his good leg out in front of him. “I find that incredibly hard to believe,” he said, entirely too tempted to confess that he didn’t understand anything about James Flint at all, especially now, especially after all that had unfolded between them. There, he supposed, was the gross irony of it all- he had known Flint in the most intimate ways one could know another person, but everything felt closed off to him, entirely mysterious and unknown. “Alright- I'll make this easier for you. Tell me about your favorite story.”

“You want me to talk to you about literature?”

“You think I don’t like a good story?” Silver replied. “Christ, you really _do_ think I’m uncultured.”

“Alright,” Flint said, not entirely convinced. He thought for a moment and then his mouth flickered into a smile- the dim glow of light caught his expression and, situated so closely to one another, there was no imagining it. “If you’re after a good story, you look to Homer. You read _The Iliad_ or, if you want a bit of your life spoken back to you, you read _The Odyssey_ . Then there’s _Robinson Crusoe_ , which is pedagogical at best but- why the fuck are you _looking at me like that_?”

Silver chortled. “Do you hear yourself? I’m getting the sense I didn’t know what I was getting into.”

Flint scoffed, hiding what Silver suspected was a smile by taking a sip of his drink. “If you’re going to be such a shit about it, we’re not talking about books. Maybe pedagogy is exactly what you need- read _Crusoe_ . Read _Meditations_. You’ll need all the help you can get to fix that that piss-poor attitude of yours.”

“ _Meditations_ ,” Silver repeated. “Now that one you hadn’t mentioned.”

He immediately felt the tension return to Flint’s body, his smile losing its warmth. He did not look to Silver. “It means a great deal to me,” Flint said at last, “it was a book Thomas shared with Miranda. Later, he shared it with me. If you read it, I imagine you’d have as good of a glimpse of him as you could ever hope to have.”

No amount of darkness or obscurity could hide the melancholic warmth in Flint’s voice then. Silver found himself at a loss for words- there they were, so close that he could feel the rasp of their breathing against one another’s, and yet Flint now seemed so far-off, so reclusive and coiled within himself. How unfair, Silver thought as a knot formed in his throat, to live in the shadows of such a stainless, inexhaustible memory. How unfair that Silver could never hope to elicit in Flint the quiet resignation of a love that had no foreseeable end.

Silver thought on how Thomas must have loved him- not in the zealous, selfless devotion at the end, but of that long, tremendous middle. Silver has only gotten him in a short, brilliant burst: as incandescent and fleeting as a flash of lightning. He envied Thomas, this phantom rival, this ghost of a man, because he had enjoyed the progression of every day with James-Silver wouldn't ever know what it was to kiss him out of habit, to unthinkingly stir with him in the morning, to yield to him at night. He wanted everything Flint could give another person- his touch, his words, his self-righteousness, the bite of his anger, the warmth of his laughter, rare and far-between. Silver couldn't even call him by name- it wasn't his to call.

“If this book is as revealing as you say it is,” Silver began, speaking in a careful hush, “who's to say he would’ve wanted the likes of me reading it? I can’t imagine what he’d think of that- what he’d think of me.”

Fint looked to him with a slow, indulgent smile- sympathy, Silver thought, and sorrow and _something else_ he couldn’t hope to decipher. “I don’t know what he would think of you, honesty,” Flint said. “I don’t know if he’d like you or try to make a convert of you- he was always drawn to people, even those who were radically unlike him. Where I saw a lost cause, he saw a challenge- maybe he would’ve thought that of you.”

Silver’s heart throbbed in his chest. Everything he wanted to say felt unspeakable.

“Well,” Flint quickly amended, pressing against him again almost playfully. “Maybe he would’ve had the good sense to find you insufferable.”

Though he understood it as the jest Flint intended it to be, Silver couldn't find it in himself to laugh. He closed his eyes, the world tilting off kilter beneath his feet. He focused on his voice, steadied his speech, desperate to hide his intoxication as best he could. “And you,” Silver said, his voice soft and slow as touch. “Is that what you think?”

Something between them changed then and Silver realized, almost distantly, that he had perhaps gone too far. He couldn’t find it in himself to care. “What do you think of me?” Silver asked, pressing again before he could think better of it.

They were so close to one another now. Without meaning or awareness, they had turned to one another more bodily, facing each other more than before. The dim, yellow glow of the kerosene lamps illuminated Flint but just barely- still, at this proximity, Silver could make enough of him out the darkness- the flush in his face, the heaviness in his lids, the slight parting of his lips and Silver knew that the alcohol had taken its effect. Still, Silver recognized, as if for the very first time, that old look of hunger, that scant glint of desire that he had seen in Flint’s gaze weeks ago.

He set his cup on the floor clumsily, the liquid dangerously close to spilling over as he forced himself to match Flint’s stare without distraction. Then, he rose his hand with all the wary caution of the injured- careful, however drunken, of acting too hastily for this moment to last. Flint didn’t tense or flinch away as Silver anticipated- instead, he remained still, waiting for the first breach of touch. It didn’t come. Instead, Silver took the bottle away from Flint, emptying his hands and observing the look of dejection that swept over his features in consequence.

 _Oh,_ Silver thought in the face of that unmistakable disappointment, _you want this, too_. And perhaps it should have bothered him more sweepingly that fate had conspired to bring them together for another meaningless tryst in the dark; the isolation, the dimness that shadowed over them, even the drunkenness that had forced down their shared defenses- it all worked so easily to their favor. It would be so easy now, Silver realized, to indulge in this again and then sweep the moment away under a thousand rich excuses: weakness, loneliness, recklessness and lust.

Silver couldn’t remember all the reasons why he had worked so hard to avoid this- maybe this was simply the only way Flint would ever want him. Maybe, if Silver was cursed to live all his life in wanting, this would have to be enough. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, he made himself speak that last fragment of truth. “I can't stop thinking about you," Silver spoke, leaning forward so that the scant space between them lessened, their faces nearly touching. “Every time I try to get you out of my head, you just- you come back to me.”

Flint’s eyes bore into Silver’s own, all too clear, entirely too piercing. He brought a hand to Silver’s neck as though to hold or throw him off, but it didn’t happen. “What does that mean?” he asked, sounding exhausted, almost vulnerable, almost weak.

Silver didn’t answer. He leaned forward instead- slow, experimental, willing and almost daring to be stopped. Then, finally then, he kissed him and it was everything he remembered it to be: warm and intoxicating and entirely too much. Silver felt that Flint was taken aback, his entire body singing with tension, but he pressed his lips into Flint’s all the same and felt a burst of relief when Flint succumbed to the touch. Silver's hands moved of their own accord, racking down his shoulders, anchoring into two fists over the material of his shirt. Flint kissed him gently, softly, with an affection that Silver hadn’t anticipated. It reminded him of the rainy morning that they had gone to bed together- Flint kissed the way he had made love: graciously, passionately, giving more and more and still managing to leave Silver in wanting.

He sighed as one kissed slurred into another, relishing in how Flint’s hands framed his face to pull him closer. They kissed and kissed, holding onto each other desperately, holding each other in place as Silver pressed at the line of Flint’s mouth, asking for him to yield, to open up to him. With a soft, almost muted sound, he did and Silver could taste the wine in his mouth. Which meant, of course, that Flint could do the same.

“Stop,” Flint said then, pulling away from Silver forcefully. “Stop it. Goddamn it, get off of me- you’re _drunk_.”

“So are you,” Silver said quickly, disoriented and upset. “I thought this was what you wanted.”

He reached out to touch Flint again, but he moved away quickly, rushing onto his feet and out of his reach- the rejection of that action hit Silver like a blow to the chest. “You think I want _this_ ?” It was gritted out, as if the very suggestion was detestable. Silver felt as though he were reeling. “This isn’t why I did this. And- and you can't fucking _use_ me to sort out your- confusion or whatever the fuck this is.”

“Is that what you think?” Silver felt dizzy with the venom of his emotions. “You’re fucking _impossible_ \- you didn’t have to do this. You didn’t have to come here. I was just fine before you came along and _ruined everything for me_ -”

Flint said nothing. He closed his eyes, wiping his hand over his mouth, his palm lingering there as if it were the only barrier to a mess of words. Sound came dully from above, their men speaking boisterously, the ocean humming along as if everything weren’t shifting and becoming undone. He left without looking back and of that Silver was grateful. It hurt too much to look at him now.

It was miserable to sit before all that darkness alone. It was the worst sort of torment to listen to Flint’s rushed stride away from him, his tumbling steps up the stairs that led to the deck, the open air, the outside world. But something has fissured in the very depths of John Silver. He was no longer tethering over the edge- they had plunged over it. They had fallen. And now something, however frightening or dangerous or unwise, had to be done with the aftermath of finally hitting the very bottom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gang, we're nearly done!! It's been such a wild ride. Without giving too much away, I can promise you that this will be our last major bout of suffering. I know I've given you all a whole lot of angst and some of you are worried about our beloved pirates not getting a happy ending- I promise you, I don't plan on being too cruel to you all. 
> 
> Thank you for your continued patience and support. Especially those sweet comments, those recommendations on tumblr and twitter and so on- every kudos, every comment, every reaction to this fic is a humbling, moving gesture that I'm totes undeserving of. I'm so lucky to have you all. 
> 
> Wish me luck with the next two chapters, our final ones. And wish me luck too, if you'd like, on the start of this new semester in grad! Wishing all my fellow students out there luck ♥︎


	10. Chapter 10

The last thing Silver wanted was for sleep to soften his anger. He could indulge his resentfulness and fight against his exhaustion, but what good would it be to be half-dead for the rest of the day? The crew wouldn’t need him- their schedule predicted another long, uninterrupted day at sea. But he would need all his strength to confront Flint without faltering. 

So much had already been set into locomotion. Silver headed straight for his hammock, stomaching the discomfort of intoxication and disrest. His head spun. His chest felt tight. His mind was whirring with all that he wanted to say. He stared blankly into the ceiling above, shifting restlessly for what felt like an eternity.

After a long while, Silver returned to what had happened with all the cautiousness of a long-harbored secret. In the pitch darkness, he brought a hand to the line of his mouth. Slowly, the pad of his fingers ran a line over the swell of his bottom lip, tracing the memory of Flint’s mouth over his own. And then, suspended in that silent reflection, sleep consumed him.

When Silver awoke, his anger had unfurled itself into something much more dangerous. He felt calmed in the most awful sort of way, stilled with the static silence that comes before a storm. 

Perhaps this was a foolish thing- an idiotic pursuit of confrontation that would only bring about more bad blood. Still, he rose from and readied without delay. The morning sky was soft, the waves reflecting the rose hue of sunrise. Silver walked to Flint’s quarters openly, aware of how the sound of his paces preceded him. He knocked loudly. 

If only for a moment, James Flint looked wholly confused when he opened the door. It was obvious he had been expecting something different; perhaps shame or the cruel indifference Silver had showed him after what had happened in Hispaniola.

“Of course it would be you,” Flint said and his voice was wasn’t cruel, not even cold, even though Silver knew he had meant it to be. It was still so early, hardly daytime, and Flint was less dressed than usual. He was missing his coat, his belt, all the usual layers that added bulk to his frame- even his shirt hung untucked from his trousers and Silver wished he hadn’t noticed. Flint looked  _ exhausted _ . He looked softer in the weariest way, faded and worn thin. 

“What do you want?” Flint asked. His arm was braced across the door to keep Silver out.

Silver swallowed, his throat aching. He released a tension he hadn’t realized he was holding in his jaw. “We need to talk.”

“We need to  _ talk _ ?” Flint repeated, eyes narrowed, his voice thick with sarcasm. “As much as you seem to enjoy wasting my fucking time, I’m not making that mistake twice.” 

“Fuck you,” Silver ground out. He pressed into the room, pushing forcefully against Flint’s arm when it braced against the intrusion. Perhaps Flint could’ve stopped him, but he gave way instead. Silver paced inside, leaning heavily against the edge of Flint’s desk to ease the weight off his leg.

Taking a deep breath, Silver readied to speak. He, who was rarely at a loss for words, felt a knot form in his throat, a heaviness on his tongue.  _ Christ, this shouldn’t be so fucking hard _ , he thought. He berated himself for the silence that stretched awkwardly between them. “I came to talk about what happened last night-”

“Nothing happened,” Flint interrupted. “Don’t fucking start this with me.” 

Silver clenched and unclenched his fist. His calm dissuaded, crackling to give way to a surge of anger. “We can’t pretend that didn’t happen, that it isn’t going to happen again-”

“You think that’s happening  _ again _ ?” Flint said, laughing cruelly, running his hands over his face like it pained him to be speaking. “You seriously think I would ever-”  
  
“I’m not confused,” Silver interrupted. “You said that to me last night and I could kill you for it. I’m not  _ confused _ .” 

“Then you’re a goddamn idiot,” Flint retorted, all the condescension of his smile turning into a sharp, unforgiving malevolence. “There’s nothing to speak about.  _ Get out.” _

Static momentarily whited over Silver’s vision.  _ “ _ You kissed me back last night- what almost happened, you wanted it. The only one who’s confused here is you.” 

Flint took a step forward, his hand tightening to a fist at his side. “I know what I am,” he said bitterly. “You came to me. You pressed the line. You kept coming back until you didn’t, until you decided to leave and forget everything. If you’re not confused, then tell me what the fuck it is you want from me.”

Silver forced himself to meet the resentment in Flint’s eyes without distraction. It matched his own. What was there to salvage in this mess? What was there to gain? Looking at him, Silver thought he recognized a flash the slightest suggestion of pain on Flint’s face. Whatever answers he could provide Flint died in his throat. 

“What do you want from me?” Flint asked again, more severely. He took another step forward, his entire form cold. “You could’ve gone to anyone for an easy fuck. It would’ve been smarter, it would’ve been  _ easier _ on an island full of whores in need of coin. Unless you really wanted it to be me, unless you  _ intended _ it to be me, is that it?” 

Silver gripped at the edge of the desk, his anger rising to a boil as his knuckles went white with tension. “What are you even talking about?” 

“Did you come to me just so you could hold it against me? So you could hold it over my head, threaten to tell everyone what I did, what I am?” 

“Don’t fucking do this,” Silver said, his voice sharp as glass. They faced each other as if they were poised to fight, tense with anxiety, waiting for the first one to strike. “Don’t twist what happened into  _ that _ . That’s not what it was, that’s not why it happened-”   


“Then tell me what you want from me so we can be done with this,” Flint said. Silver recognized the detachment in Flint’s voice, but there was something else there. He could see how this  question was splitting him open, cracking him down the very core. 

“You always had a choice. I didn't just go to you, you took me in. You let me into your room. You touched me and you let me touch you. This is just as much your fault as it is mine.” Silver knew with every fiber of his being that these weren't the right words to say. Something in Flint’s posture changed instantly, ready to strike. 

“Get out,” he said severely. “Leave.”  
  
Silver couldn’t explain what overcame him. He shook his head gravely, steeling himself as Flint took another step forward. “No.” 

“Christ, Silver, get the fuck out,” Flint spat. “You’re not a goddamn child, don’t make me force you-”  
  
“Do it,” Silver said, goading him on against reason. “You didn’t like my answer, so force me out. Who’s running from the goddamn conversation now?”

Flint made it across the room quickly, as if Silver’s defiance had pushed him out of control. He grabbed Silver, working to pull him off the desk. It became a fight. Silver resisted violently, taking hold of Flint and pushing him away. They contended with one another, suspended in a push-and-pull that seemed to have no end. They didn’t exchange a word but their labored breaths sounded between them. Pulling became more akin to striking and pushing became more akin to dodging a blow. Then, Silver’s false leg slipped. It scratched noisily against the floor as he lost balance, tumbling slightly. 

Flint knew an opening when he saw one. He rushed at Silver, pressing against him and, perhaps working on instinct and fury alone, pinned him down across the desk. He forced his hands over his head, holding both wrists bound in one fist. Silver felt full of heat, his heart pounding in his chest. Pressed to Flint as he was, he could feel the man shaking but it wasn’t from fear. Flint was visibly stunned, as if shocked by the position he had forced them into and now totally unsure of how to proceed. He had expected Silver to react with violence. He had expected Silver to resist and take the action as the threat it was supposed to be. Instead, Silver allowed himself to be moved. He allowed Flint to handle him as he wanted. He looked him squarely in the face and maintained perfectly still, maddeningly calm. The power between them shifted in Silver’s favor. 

Silver pressed against Flint’s grip on his wrists experimentally, unsurprised when the force over them didn’t relent. He tried to lift his back from the desk, finding no purchase there either. “You kissed me back,” Silver said, his voice low. “You would’ve fucked me there, too, if you hadn’t thought better of it.”

“ _ Shut up. _ ” Flint voice was thick with tension. He forced Silver’s arms higher, intentional in his roughness.

Silver smiled sardonically at him, cruelly pleased to get under his skin. “You always act so superior, so in control, but it’s bullshit. You’re just as weak as I am and I  _ see _ that- it kills you that I see that, doesn’t it?”

A laugh crawled up his throat but Silver stifled it, watching Flint with intent. He, who always shielded himself with composure and anger, finally looked outdone. This was what Silver had always wanted: to crack Flint’s facade of control and see what lived beneath. It didn’t matter that this wasn’t how he wanted it to happen. Flint’s dismissiveness had hurt him and now, however stupidly, Silver wanted to hurt him back.

Flint grabbed at him, pulling Silver off of the desk by the front of his shirt. He turned him like it was nothing and bent them both over to find the hard surface of the desk again. Silver’s chest hit the desk with a dull thump. “Is this what you want?” Flint asked in a clipped voice. “Is this what this entire conversation is for?” 

This release of grace and strength was entirely deliberate, Silver knew that. He shuddered under Flint’s weight all the same. “Why? You’re gonna give it to me if I ask? Or do you want me to beg? You liked that the last time.” 

“ _ Fuck you _ .”

“Wouldn’t you like that,” Silver laughed. He jerked his hips back against Flint’s groin, knowing it would antagonize him, unsurprised when Flint jolted against him in response. He pressed Silver hard against the desk again but, this time, Silver groaned at the feeling. Flint’s breath was all over him, low and labored and confused. 

The length of Flint’s body felt hard and hot behind him. Silver’s face pressed hard against the smooth, cool surface of the desk. “I hate this,” Flint grinded out, jamming his knee hard between Silver’s thighs. “Don’t fucking do this to me. Don’t do this, you shit, don’t keep coming back to me if this isn’t  _ real- _ ” 

Flint’s voice gave in, crumbling into silence as his free hand found the base of Silver’s neck. Silver sounded against the pressure of Flint’s fingers, squeezing enough to discomfort. He was already half-hard and there's no way Flint didn't know that. Flint’s leg between his thighs only worked to goad that on- he shuffled for some form of contact, trying to frott against Flint as best he could. He heard Flint’s intake of breath- sharp, shaking- and then Flint rolled against him once, twice, thrice, eliciting gasps from the two of them as they fell into an empty imitation of what they both wanted. 

Without warning, Flint released Silver entirely. His hands found new anchor on the jut of Silver’s hips. He pulled Silver close, rutting against him with all heated deliberation. One hand snaked around Silver’s middle further, brushing against the growing tension in Silver’s pants briskly. 

“ _ Fuck _ ,” Silver groaned, pushing his ass back against Flint again, his bad leg slipping slightly. Then, before Silver could understand what was happened, Flint got off of him. The absence of that painful, unrelenting pressure was shocking. He wanted it back immediately. 

Silver listened as Flint began to undo his pants. The realization of what was happening hit him like a strike to the chest. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t what Silver came here for. Yet he found he couldn’t bring himself to care because even now his body arched against Flint’s, seeking pressure, seeking friction. Flint was angry and desperate, they both were, and it was all that frustration, teeming over to a boiling point, that drove them forward now. 

  
Silver didn’t speak as Flint loomed over him again, his hands making work of Silver’s own clothing. Flint found the hem of his pants. He yanked them down hastily and pushed Silver into position- Silver found himself better spread across the desk, his ass lifted up for Flint, his hands shaking as they found anchor along the desk’s corners.  

“The drawer,” Flint said. They had hurtled to this very moment but physicality was an obstacle all the same. Silver pushed forward onto his elbows, groping blindly with an unsteady hand for what Flint had directed him to. The lubricant was unmistakable- it was the same bottle from the brothel in Hispaniola. Flint had kept it. Silver chose not to linger on the subject, dipping back onto the table once Flint took the bottle from from him. Silver listened as the bottle was opened, tensing in reflexive anticipation at the slick sound of Flint smearing a copious portion onto his palms. 

There was no mistaking the line of Flint’s erection against him, hot and throbbing as it slid over the cleft of Silver’s behind. He bit back a groan as one of Flint’s hands found the muscle of his thigh. He squeezed into the flesh there, his nails digging into the skin in a way that was pleasurable but sure to mark. Then, he pressed into Silver with an oiled finger. 

They didn’t speak. An unspoken understanding settled between them that speech was too dangerous, too venomed with potential translucence. Silence felt safer, less vulnerable- it allowed them to mutually indulge in the illusion of impersonality.   
  
Flint pulled out of Silver slowly, before pressing in more deeply than before. The intrusion grew uncomfortable only slightly, after another finger pressed into him just a bit too soon. The pain dissipated easily enough. Of course, Silver realized bitterly, that even in the throes of anger Flint wouldn’t go too quickly, too roughly, as to truly hurt him in this way. 

Silver bit back his moans, the only sound in the room being his labored, shaking breaths as Flint worked into him, his fingers scissoring to loosen him. Then, just as he was getting into the steady rhythm of it, Flint’s fingers were gone. Something else- blunt, thick, almost familiar and better than all of Silver’s memories combined- tried to replace them. As soon as Flint felt the slightest give, he pushed inside. The two of them sounded in the same breath. 

He moved slowly, working into Silver an inch at a time, but not relenting, rocking into him until Silver gave entirely, taking him whole. Finally bottoming out, Flint dropped his forehead to the crook of Silver’s shoulder. Silver held his breath when Flint turned his face against the bared skin of his neck, his beard scratching over hot skin. Silver could feel his mouth, his parted lips, his ragged breath- he turned his face, so that the space between their mouths grew scanter, his own lips falling open as Flint thrusted into him for the first time.

Flint tensed immediately, falling completely still. He turned his face before their mouths could connect, shifting so that he was no longer as pressed along the length of Silver’s body as he had been before. It was only in being denied that Silver realized how badly he had wanted Flint to kiss him just then.

They moved together, quickly falling into a rhythm. Flint had Silver at precisely the correct angle and each motion felt tantalizing, unthinkably good, but there was an obvious restraint between them both. Silver remembered the feverishness of the first time they had done this- how generously they kissed one another, how frantically they ran hands over every expanse of each other’s bodies. None of that happened now- not a single caress, not even a word, and Silver felt the difference in a way that wrenched him to his very core.

Flint must have noticed a change in Silver. He pressed into him sharply then, hitting him deeper than before, shaking Silver from the haze of his half-formed thoughts. Silver couldn’t suppress the weak, undignified sounds spilling out of his mouth then; his hands trembled, his knees shook both from exhaustion and overindulgence. He dropped his forehead to the surface of the desk, jerking forward crudely as Flint worked into him perfectly. 

Silver felt tension building inside him, every nerve in his body building towards a steadying peak. Then, Flint moved to touch him, to take hold of Silver where he ached most. Silver caught him immediately, his hand snapped like iron over Flint’s wrist. His breath pitched, acutely aware of how badly his cock throbbed and how Flint could, with just a few tugs no doubt, bring him to the point of total relief. He denied Flint all the same. No matter the dark, rattling emotions that drove them to this, Silver didn’t want this to be over and done with. He would draw this out. He would savour it.

Whether Flint understood the rejection for what it was, Silver didn’t know. But Flint slowed his rhythm all the same, pulling out almost entirely from Silver, before driving into him harder. Silver’s breath hitched and, when Flint repeated this motion, he drove back deliberately to meet him. Then, with Flint’s body pressed so neatly along the length of Silver’s back, Silver reached back with both hands. Taking Flint’s shoulder in one hand and his head with the other, Silver turned Flint’s face to his own, pulling him fiercely, and kissed him hard on the mouth. 

It was an entirely violent kiss. Their teeth practically knocked together and their lips connected with all the ferocity to bruise. When Flint broke to breathe, Silver pressed into him again with unthoughtful impatience. When Flint gave the slightest hint of turning away to deny him again, Silver chased, groaning into his mouth, sucking at his lip. 

Flint wrenched away, his face flushed, his mouth wet and swollen. Before Silver could move to pursue him, his anger peaked at being denied again, Flint took hold of the nape of his neck again- stilling Silver beneath him, he pulled out of him slowly, ignoring Silver’s sounds of protest. 

He handled Silver possessively, turning him over and onto his back before Silver could speak. Then, facing one another plainly for the first time, Silver’s words dissolved in his mouth. Flint leaned over him, taking the bottom of Silver’s thighs in his hands and then lifting him, pushing him up onto the desk in a near-sitting position. The position was an instant relief on Silver’s legs but, more importantly, it allowed them to stare at each other plainly and honestly, their faces colored in awe and unease. 

Breaking eye contact, Flint’s focus returned to the desperation, the ache between them, so that when he positioned Silver, entering him again with ease, it was almost more than either of them could withstand. They were nearly done, that much was obvious, and maybe it was the near completion of it, maybe it was the sight of Flint- his eyes nearly closed, his face flushed and damp with sweat, so close that Silver could almost count the freckles across the bridge of his nose and make out every lash of his eyes- it emboldened Silver so that his hand cupped Flint’s jaw again. He ran his thumb soothingly over Flint’s cheek, almost caressing him. He tried to pull Flint in to kiss him again, expecting the heated recklessness of before, and was met with resistance. 

“Come here, I just- I want-” Silver rasped, framing Flint’s face in his hands. Their eyes met and Silver knew he had made himself entirely too transparent, that all this longing, all this aching and this hurting had now pulled its way to the surface and was bleeding out of him. “I want you.”

Flint kissed him, really kissed him. His mouth was soft and yielding over Silver’s own. This was nothing like their earlier kisses- all the depth and the hunger was still there, but these kisses slurred into one another, gentle and yearning. Now, with Flint kissing him this way, Silver was transported back to that rainy morning in Hispaniola. He felt the memories like a pang in his chest, like the wind had been knocked out of him. 

It was as if this moment, where the mood between them shifted into something sweeter and purer than before, was bringing everything to light, so that everything Silver felt rushed forward like a flood, crashing over him all at once. 

Silver felt a realization rise from the darkest, most secret crevice of his soul. Without knowing when or how it had even begun, Silver recognized that he loved James Flint in a way that was entirely beyond his control. Flint had a rage and a violence in him the world could not fathom. But somehow, in a way Silver could neither understand or resist, he mutually held such a capacity to touch, to caress, to unfurl and overwhelm, to make Silver feel as though the sun shined it’s radiance for him alone. 

They kissed again and again, catalyzed into motion- gone was the agonizing slowness and the brutal aggression of earlier. They worked together clumsily, falling out of pace as they frenzied toward something greater. Silver whined into Flint’s mouth, their kisses interrupted each time his mouth fell open into a shocked gasp at this new angle and the bundle of nerves it tapped into so easily now.    
  
“Please,” Silver whispered again, pressing his lips to the corner of Flint’s mouth. “Oh, god,  _ please- _ ”

Silver didn’t even know what he was pleading for. It was insane to ask for more when Flint was already driving into him, when they were both at the cusp of fruition, almost entirely overcome. Flint nodded his head purposelessly, beyond the point of words, dipping to drop his mouth at the junction of Silver’s neck and sucking a bruise into the skin there.

“I want this,” Silver said, his fingers spreading wide over the crown of Flint’s hand. “ _ Oh _ \- I want  _ you _ \- just you.  _ Christ _ , I want you so bad it scares me, don’t you understand?” 

Flint exhaled sharply, his breath shaking like a dry sob. “John,” he said, speaking his name at last, crossing the last divide between them onto the familiar. “Don’t say that- fuck, don't say that if you don’t-” 

“I mean it. More than anything, more than I can stand- I want you,” Silver said with a shaking breath. He wrapped his arms around Flint’s shoulders, clinging to him with every muscle, drawing his knees around him to pull him closer. 

Flint fucked into him just one last time, just right, and the heat at the pit of his core rose, spilling across his stomach. Silver’s voice cracked as he moaned, all the frayed overstimulation of release rushing to a stinging in his eyes, a knot in his throat, a tremor across his lips- he eased, yielding to Flint’s last surges against him to chase his own relief. And as he did, fucking into him for the last time, Silver lifted Flint’s face with trembling hands, so he could kiss him as he came inside him. Silver sighed sweetly, kissing almost chastely- pressing his lips to the corner of Flint’s mouth, to his forehead, to the rise and fall of his cheekbones, to the dampness that gathered and spilled from his closed eyes. 

They eased off one another, coming apart but not ceasing in touch, as if they were jointly trying to make up for lost time. Lying next to one another on the desk, they faced each other, breath harsh as they waited for their heart to slow.

  
“Silver,” Flint spoke, breathless. Then, catching his eye and, leaning in to kiss him easily on the lips, with seemingly no real intent beyond affection, amended himself, speaking again. “John, what are we doing?” 

He measured his words, inhaling deeply. “We’re not running away. We’re not fucking this up anymore. We're  _ talking _ .”

Flint looked at him at length, his forehead creased with lingering disbelief. “I can't keep doing this- not if you you keep pushing me into this and running away from me when I give in. I can't fathom you. I don't ever know what it is you want- I was so fucking angry at you. I still am. I never know what’s going through your head and I need this to be real, John.”

“It can be,” Silver said. “We can have this. It doesn't have be a fight.”

“Who made it that way?” he replied, hardly a question. Flint shifted, something in him weakly defensive. "Why’d you leave that morning- when I asked you to stay, why did you leave?” 

“Why’d you leave yesterday?” Silver said, trying to make light of the pain between them and failing. 

Flint frowned. He kept his silence.

"I was scared,” Silver confessed, pushing past the fear that coiled in his chest. “That's why I left. That's why I didn't come back. And if you're honest with yourself, you know that's why you left, too. But… I suspect we're scared for vastly different reasons.”

“Yes,” Flint said then, very quietly. “Do you remember when we first spoke, out on that beach? I thought you couldn’t stand the look of me- it was too easy to tell you about Thomas, about Miranda, about everything. You just listened. You just accepted- you took what I am and what I’ve done so easily, like it was nothing.”

“Because it  _ is _ nothing,” Silver interrupted, reaching for Flint’s hand. “What do you have to be ashamed of? What is so monstrous about who you were? I see you as you are. I always have- you’ve fucking hated me for it. I’ve seen you manipulate men. I’ve seen you abuse them. I’ve seen you torment men with the mere threat of your name. Did you really think I would abhor you not because you killed a man, but because you  _ loved _ one?” 

“You must know you’re singular in that opinion- that out there, most would rather see a man dead than be this.” Flint laced his fingers with Silver’s own. “You kissed me. And when I got on my knees for you- do you know how much I had wanted that? How long I had imagined doing that to you?”

Silver felt his breath stop short. His muscles tensed, nervous to voice a question whose answer might hurt him. “Then what’s wrong in this? What’s to stop this? You kept insisting it was all a mistake, kept pushing for it all to end.” 

Flint let out a broken breath of a laugh. “There are a million reasons to stop this. This is too goddamn dangerous- it could make the men contempt you. It would give them cause to disdain me more than they already do. It could be used against us- if not by them, then by those we work against. It could cloud our judgement- Christ, John, almost everything’s working against this.”

Silver looked away from Flint now, a bitter taste in his mouth. “Is it worth it?” Silver asked, letting the question linger in the air above them. “I’d suffer the risks. I’m not worried about our men. I’m not afraid of any of the poor fucks who think they could use you against me.”

A moment stretches between them, static over the darkness between them. Flint sat up, the desk creaking beneath him. “This isn’t just about fucking to you,” he spoke. It wasn't a question, but the disbelief was still there. “For a long time I thought it was. There are men who do this- who are… curious about what this looks like between men, who play the part before they turn and run. I thought that of you, too, for a while- that unless I pushed you away from me, I’d pull you in too deep. And then you’d leave, tearing some part of me with you- I couldn’t suffer that after Thomas and Miranda- I can’t.”

Silver closed his eyes as he considered his words. "I’m not going to run. I'm not playing a part, either, if that's what you're worried about. You think I'd want this so much if I wasn’t certain of it? You don't know the fucking half of it I wanted you before you ever even touched me. That first night on your bed, I nearly touched myself at the thought of you. I did it in mine, later- even in here when you weren’t around.”

When Silver looked to Flint, his eyes were impossibly round. “You-  _ what _ ? In here? When the fuck did you manage that?”

Silver laughed. He felt as though that hadn't happened in years. “You've got me desperate, you asshole.” He sat up, stretching languidly, almost catlike. “Don't you remember what I told you? It's never been like this with anyone but you. All these new experiences have got me more worked up than usual. I was  _ coping _ .”

Flint gave him a long look over, his eyes lingering over Silver’s mouth, before dipping to the expanse of his chest, his stomach, then lower. “I thought that was just talk.”

“Had I only been so lucky,” Silver snorted. “No, I meant every word of it. So, imagine how it felt every time you called this a mistake, I just- I wanted to hit you, I wanted to fucking kiss you breathless, anything to get you to stop." He touched Flint’s thigh, pressed against his own, raking his nails noncommittally over the muscle there. “You don’t know what it’s like to have to deal with the fear of something you’ve never had before- you’ve had Thomas, you’ve had Miranda. For me, there’s only been you.”

“This isn’t anything like what I had with them. You were right, earlier- you see me as I am. I  _ have _ hated you for it- when it felt as though you could see right through me, as if you saw too much of what I have spent years trying to hide. I don’t know how you do it. I don’t know how you could want what you find in me.” 

“But I do,” Silver spoke, his voice heavy with raw and unprotected truth. “Don't ask me to explain it, you just open something in me.” 

A moment’s silence fell between them, but something fragile waited beneath it. 

“I fear we’ll harm each other irreparably,” Flint spoke, “like this pattern you’ve seen in all who get close to me will threaten to consume you, too-”

“James,” Silver interjected, frowning. “I don’t-” 

“Let me finish,” Flint said, smiling in a way that suggested real sadness. “Nothing frightens me anymore. I’ve lost more than most can imagine. I've faced death so often it's become a familiar friend to me. But, I am scared of this.”

Flint took a breath before continuing. 

“In all the time that we’ve known each other, John, there were moments that I felt bound to you. If we do this- if we become partners even in  _ this _ -” Flint reached out to trace a touch over Silver’s chest, looking as though he were still in some soft shade of disbelief. “I feel as though the world would open itself up for the taking, too, like I could do anything with you beside me.” 

“A friend once warned me against being alone- she told me that attachments give life a sort of brilliance,” Silver spoke, nearly a whisper. “That brilliance she spoke of and that feeling this gives you- don't you think it will have been worth the harm to have that? To have each other, for whatever time our fates allot us?”

Flint didn’t give him an immediate answer. He leaned closer instead, brushing a few strands of hair away from Silver’s brow like it was a natural thing between them to show affection in the small things. His fingertips traced the line of Silver’s ribs, the flat of his hand coming to rest over the steady beating of his heart. Silver felt, rather than heard, his answer as Flint kissed along the line of Silver’s jaw, mumbling his name right against his ear, his voice low and impossibly sweet, almost reverent. Silver returned each kiss, selfish for every moment of Flint's unadulterated attention until the pull of touching him, of opening his mouth, of yielding to him entirely drew over him like a flood-tide. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, gang. We're technically at the end our story! The next chapter will be our closing epilogue. I'm so sorry for the delay in the chapter- it's been a tremendous wait, but school and work took its toll on me and I did a lot of contending with this chapter. I knew what the action of the chapter would be, but I wanted the conversation to read genuinely, to be fulfilling. All this wait for them to speak and they finally did. And I think it's going to be okay with them- as okay as it can be for these two violent and messy and perfectly broken dorks. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for your attention! Thank you for every comment and kudos and visit because I couldn't have had the confidence to write any of this without each and every one of you.


	11. Epilogue

It was a pleasure to wake up in a foreign bed. John Silver stretched under the bedcovers, relishing in the comfort that even the best quarters in the grandest of ships couldn’t provide. In the months that had passed since Silver had last seen Madi’s doctors, he had lost more of his leg. The second loss wasn’t as painful as the first, but it filled Silver with a bitter indignation at having to resign to the limits of his own body. Consequently, certain sacrifices were warranted: The iron boot was no longer an option. Silver developed a begrudged reliance on crutches and _The Walrus_ ’ voyages were now more often peppered with short breaks, as he could only endure the harsh, cramped conditions of a seafaring for so long without pause.

Still, it wasn’t all bad. This island was no Hispaniola, but the air was crisp with the taste of the changing seasons and the babble of the ocean waves sounded from the windows of the spacious, oriented room of the lodging-house. Besides, it wasn’t every day that Silver woke before Flint had and he was determined to appreciate the rare opportunity to admire Flint openly, without rush or hesitation. They were curled towards one another, the space between them sacred and scant, as if they safeguarded their secrets between their resting forms.

The morning luminescence set off Flint’s features in the softly lit room. Silver reached out to lay the back of his hand on Flint’s cheek, touching lightly as he examined him curiously. No matter how often Silver stared at Flint, there always seemed to be something new to admire in him. His face with littered with freckles, less like spotted markings of constellations and more like the stippling of paint. Flint was freckled all over, Silver knew, and he was proud to be familiar with all the expanses of skin no one else would ever see- the firmness of Flint’s stomach, the broad expanse of his back, the perfect shape of his feet. It was sweet to see him this way, uncharacteristically vulnerable. Flint looked younger somehow, his face smoothed over with the calm of sleep. His eyelashes were a shock of softness, a sweep of darkness over sun-washed skin. Silver couldn’t look to his mouth, the sweet, familiar line of it, without wanting to kiss him.

Silver shifted, slowly pulling the bedcovers off them both. Flint made a faint noise, his eyebrows furrowing when Silver turned to him, kissing softly at the hot skin of his neck. He was suddenly very appreciative of their shared nakedness- after a feverish night together, both of them too sated and lazy to get re-dressed for bed. Silver nipped at junction of Flint’s neck, kissing nonchalantly at the jut of his collarbones, making a slow line down his body with his lips. Silver knew Flint’s body almost as well as his own now, familiar with each smooth, pale scar that marred his chest.

Silver turned his cheek against the jut of Flint’s hipbone, sighing contently as he settled more comfortably between Flint’s legs. When he looked up, Silver was happy to be met with Flint’s soft-eyed stare. “Morning,” Silver all but whispered.

“Good morning,” Flint said, and his voice was hoarse, still thick with sleep. His fingers twisted softly in Silver’s hair affectionately.

Silver’s own hands framed Flint’s hips. “Did I wake you?” he said teasingly, following it with a grin. “I didn’t mean to.”

Slow to answer, Flint breathed out a laugh and stretched, lazy and humming. “Yes, well, I’m certainly not _complaining_ , John.”

“That’s good,” Silver said. His hands slipped soothingly over Flint’s thick, bare thighs. “I’d certainly hate to upset you this early in the morning.”

Tension radiated like heat from Flint’s body, but it was colored with anticipation, even eagerness. Silver traced an easy, gradual line over Flint’s stomach with his mouth, kissing at the jut of his pelvic bone, teasing as he brushed Flint’s skin deliberately with his beard. He trailed further south, but avoided where Flint was working into a tension, his cock already hardening between his legs.  
  
Flint made a disapproving sound at the denial, shifting where he lay. Silver remained unhurried, offering him a simpering smile before squeezing at the muscle of Flint’s thighs. He could never really account for the effect Flint had on him. There was once a time that Silver thought himself incapable of real affection- that sort of softly-spun devotion that seemed too fantastical for a world so full of strife and bloodshed. But Flint had a way of leaving Silver in wanting: the timber of his laugh, the suggestion of muscle beneath his clothing, even just the glimpse of his neck made Silver weak. And, god, Flint’s _thighs-_ they were on a league of their own.

Silver ran his nails noncommittally over Flint’s thigh, leaving a pale impression that faded to pink. When Flint’s fingers pressed soothingly into his scalp, Silver couldn’t help but sigh, dipping to kiss where he had scratched. He mouthed at Flint’s inner thigh, the softest suggestion of his tongue, warm and promising, against the sensitive skin there.

Flint made a small noise as he attempted to arch his hips, only to be pushed back down into the mattress. “John,” he said, his voice low, with no other intent besides spurring Silver on.

“Relax,” Silver said, ducking his head further to kiss him more, now only so much closer to where Flint wanted him. “We’ve got plenty of time. There’s no need to rush.”

Flint breathed in, sharp and shuddering, when Silver finally took him in hand, his fingers circling around the girth of him. He jerked him off a couple of times, lazily, without any real intent or work to it- just to hear the weak rasp of a sound that came out of Flint as he stroked him. Flint was never particularly talkative when they did this- each sound of pleasure was low-strung, often intentionally muffled, and it had a strange effect on Silver, inciting him to an almost juvenile determination to touch and tease Flint to a point of uncharacteristic loudness.

Silver ran his tongue over his lips before putting his mouth on Flint, intentional in each moment of delay. Then, he gave the hard length of Flint’s cock a long, slow lick. Flint’s hand found new purchase in the curls of Silver’s hair, pulling slightly and Silver, by consequence, suppressed the urge to laugh. He found such a pleasure in doing this to Flint- Silver had wanted to suck him off since that first night on Hispaniola, back when their relationship had just begun to set into motion. Since then, he had made good on that desire with repeated enthusiasm. There was just something inexhaustible about how beautiful Flint would get in the throes of it, all curled toes and wandering hands, pushing hard and thick past Silver’s lips with just as much gentleness as primal demand.

Silver clutched hard at Flint’s thighs, feeling his heart thud in his chest at the sight of him: Flint’s  bright eyes were narrowed and turbulent, his cheeks colored, his neck and his chest beginning to flush into a perfect shade of pink. _Hungry_ , Silver thought. _Desperate. Weak._

He stroked Flint again, closing his eyes and breathing in through his nose before he took the tip of Flint’s cock into his mouth, sucking hard. Flint’s back arched off the bed and Silver reacted, his hands sliding possessively from Flint’s thighs and groping, instead, at the swell of his ass. Silver hollowed his cheeks, his tongue darting out in a deliberate tease across the slit.

“Fuck,” Flint groaned, his fingers twisting into the dark strands of Silver’s curls. He gasped, his breath quickening in short bursts as Silver palmed at his ass, feeling those muscles clench and harden with every irrepressible stutter of Flint’s hips. Silver gripped at him again, pushing Flint upward to fuck into the wet, tight heat of his mouth, dictating the slow, steady pace of each thrust.

Silver couldn’t help but sound his own pleasure, foggily aware that each reverberation of his hums brought Flint all the closer to release. His knees were already trembling from stimulation. His own cock twitched in response, untouched but heavy, almost painful, with arousal. He pulled from the base of Flint’s cock, breathing shakily through his nose, sliding it nearly all the way out his mouth and then back in again, swallowing him down deep.

Flint sighed his name, seeking blindly for one of Silver’s hands. Their fingers interlocked, their knuckles almost white with tension, and Silver repeated the motion, his tongue curling against the underside of Flint’s length as he pulled away before swallowing back down, his lips pink and wet with the work of it.

“Fuck,” he said again, sounding almost as though he were choking or maybe sobbing, a beautiful, fragile sound. “Oh, fuck, I’m going to- I want to, John, in your mouth-”

Silver pulled Flint up into his mouth again, humming weakly as he shoved him up and deeper still, almost to the point of discomfort. Flint shuddered, his back arched, letting the hand that still remained gripped in Silver’s hair drop to cup his jaw, his thumb caressing Silver’s cheek soothingly. Silver relaxed his jaw in anticipation to Flint’s last, desperate thrusts into his mouth. Flint’s thighs pressed against him, one of his calves rising to curl around the small of of Silver’s back. Silver let himself gag around Flint’s cock, laxing his throat just enough for it click as Flint pushed in one final time.

Flint came with a weak groan and Silver relished in the work it took to swallow it down, breaking away from Flint with a wet, reddened mouth. He rested his head against Flint’s thigh, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and waiting, with half-closed eyes, for his heart to stop hammering in his ears.

“Come here,” Flint said. His voice was still weak from the force of his orgasm, his face flush with a sort of dazed, sated glow. “I want touch you- I want to see you.”  

Silver climbed over Flint unsteadily, as if in a fog, dropping beside him in the bed and nuzzling breathlessly into his neck. He kissed there slurrishly, biting uselessly at the shell of Flint’s ear before kissing at the line of his cheekbone. Flint turned over to him, framing Silver’s face with warm hands and pulling him forward so that his mouth found Silver’s own. They broke away too soon from each other, their breaths too stunted for the sort of deep, feverish kisses they were attempting. Silver couldn’t help but laugh, even when Flint’s hand slipped down his body and gripped him, his cock leaking and desperate for relief. Silver reached his own climax quickly- only a few motions of Flint’s tight, hot fist was enough- already having gone so long in the haze of arousal. He came with a weak sound, nearly a whimper, spilling hot over his own stomach.

Flint kissed him generously, brushing his lips soft against Silver’s cheek, his nose, his brow that was now damp with sweat. Silver felt warm all over, overwhelmed by his own satisfaction. He laughed breathlessly, sighing Flint’s name as he wrapped his arms about his neck. He wondered why it was so easy to smile with this man and how it was that Flint could inspire something so sweet, so impossibly _good_ out of him.

Through some reservoir of resilience that Silver couldn't claim to have, Flint climbed out of bed. Silver waited with closed eyes, feeling as the mattress dipped with the weight of Flint’s return- the cool, wet sensation of a towel against his abdomen was surprising, but not unwelcome. They cleaned each other. They touched, almost incessantly. When they were finished, Silver watched fondly as Flint settled more comfortably into bed and, gradually, closed his eyes with a returned drowsiness.

“You can't go back to sleep.” Silver bumped his forehead softly against Flint’s temple, almost hesitant to stir him out of the beginnings of sleep. “We’ve a long day ahead. If we don’t go out there, someone’s bound to set off to find us.”

“I don’t give a fuck about that,” Flint said. Though stubborn disapproval often seemed like his natural condition, Silver recognized when Flint was only playing the part and it made him laugh.

“Don’t you remember what happened last time?” he pressed. “Poor Billy, always barging into the wrong place at the wrong time- he couldn’t look you in the face for a week.”

Flint grimaced. “I really don't want to hear you talk about Billy when we’re in bed together.”

“But, Christ, James, have you _seen_ him?” Silver rolled off of Flint, throwing an arm melodramatically over his brow. “Every time I get a look at those thick, burly arms-”

Flint snorted. “Well, fuck you.”

At this, Silver genuinely laughed and the distasteful look Flint gave him cracked, revealing shared amusement. “We’re almost through,” Silver spoke, shifting into a feeling of disbelief. “Can you believe it? Everything's nearly set into place. After all the years you’ve spent in pursuit of Nassau, the end’s finally in sight.”

Silver hadn’t noticed how sweetly unguarded Flint’s expression had been until it had already changed. A pensive tension swept over his face as he averted his eyes from the smile Silver offered him.

Silver tried to imagine what Flint must have been thinking. Though they never spoke of it, Flint always seemed to carry a wary distrust of hope. It was as though he feared indulging in untarnished happiness for too long, having become bitterly accustomed to how desolation gnawed at his bones. Silver could see it, sometimes, in the way Flint looked at him. He saw it again now, in this reluctance Flint felt towards the long-awaited claiming of Nassau.

Silver touched Flint’s face gingerly, hoping to anchor him in the present before Flint could turn too deeply into himself, inaccessible and far-off. “After this is finished,” Silver began, speaking softly, “do you still intend to disappear?”

There was an unspoken assumption embedded onto the question, but it simply hurt too much to ask Flint if he truly saw himself surviving the last, inevitable struggle against their enemies. Flint turned to him with renewed focus, brushing some unruly curls from Silver’s face. If Flint had caught onto the implications of Silver’s question, he had the chosen not to broach the subject explicitly. “Yes,” he spoke. “I haven’t changed my mind. Captain Flint can die in the battle that secures Nassau. The world won’t have any need of that name anymore, or all the horrors that name brings.”

Silver frowned. A dangerous question rose in his mind, but he would speak it. They were beyond the point of useless misunderstandings now. “And what of what _I_ need? Do you intend to just leave me behind?”

“You say that as though it would be the easiest thing in the world,” Flint replied, his voice soft. “You’re the only person in the world who sees me as I am. You're all that I have. I don't want to be divided from you.”

“Then ask me to go with you,” Silver insisted. “If you’re so hellbent on leaving, ask me to follow and I will.”  

“You wouldn’t know what to do with a quiet life, John. Especially not now- the men who trust you, the name you've made for yourself. I can't ask you to leave that all behind for me. It’d ruin everything.”

“That’s not true.” 

“It is,” Flint said with a raw scrape of a laugh. “Maybe not immediately but if I force your hand- if I take you away from those who need you and where you want to be- you’ll grow to resent me. I have been where you are now and I couldn’t imagine, then, ever wanting the comforts of a quiet life- the banality of it, the unimportant grind of every single day. You don’t want that, I can see it in your face- I could ask you to follow me, but you’d only come to hate me for it.”

“But we _struggled_ for this,” Silver said, not looking at Flint as he said it. It was a long time before he lifted his eyes to Flint’s waiting ones. “Now that we finally have each other, you expect me to leave you behind? Do you really think I could go on so easily without you, just so you could spend the rest of your life obscure and alone?”

“I don't want that,” Flint spoke. There was an edge to his voice that made Silver believe him earnestly and it made his chest feel tight. “God, John, I’ll wait for you, don't you understand? I'll set everything in place for you. When you're ready, when you're through with this life, I want you to always know where you can return to- where you can find me.”

Silver frowned, a knot forming in his throat. It meant the world to him that Flint would lay in wait for him, but a visceral fear crept into his mind. “What if I become someone you can’t recognize in that time? Someone you don’t want.”

Flint gave him a strange look. “That can’t happen.”

“It can,” Silver argued. “And it _will_ happen if you're not beside me- you know as well as I that I’ll loose sight of myself. I'll change.”

A legitimate guilt had swept over Flint’s features and he wanted more than anything to soothe it away. “I don’t understand. If anything, I’ve incited the changes in your nature the most. You've waded into my capacity for cruelty and developed your own.”

“No,” Silver said, speaking softly. “No, you've never changed my nature. I am now as I always was. Only my circumstances have changed. But what we have anchors me. It steadies me. I can't lose that.”

A beat passed between them, charged with a somber wistfulness. Silver knew this wasn't a rejection, but he knew just as well that they stood divided by legitimate worries and deep-running desires. Flint wanted and deserved the quiet end of his journey and, besides claiming Nassau, there was very little to hold him against pursuing it. Silver couldn't say the same.  
  
“I can’t lose you,” Silver said. He felt a strange shift pass between them and, when he looked into Flint’s eyes, he felt understood without words. He felt seen completely and utterly, as if it was Flint now who could peer into the very depths of him, where the love he felt for him ached sharply.

“Do you know what happens at the end of _The Odyssey_?” Flint was sitting up now, leaning forward. “Odysseus reunites with his wife. He embraces his father again. Everything that kept him from submitting to his misfortunes was given to him at last. Do you think he found rest?”  

Silver sat upright in turn. He raised his hand, touching the back of Flint’s head, just behind his ear. His hair had become so much longer than before, when it had been grazed to the scalp. “No. It sounds too simple,” he said.

Flint nodded. “Odysseus is made to fulfill one final prophecy. He's made to walk unceasingly, carrying an oar, until the people he finds so far inland, totally unfamiliar with the sea, mistake the oar for a winnowing tool. He buries the oar deep into the ground in sacrifice to Poseidon and, only then, can he find peace.” Flint took Silver’s hand in his own. “Besides the men that look to you, what is it that holds you to the sea?”

Silver was surprised by the question. He considered _The Walrus_ crew. He considered his infamy and the authority he had spilt sweat and blood to earn. All these things, he realized, would pass either by the hand of death, disability, or time. “I need my own claim to a secure life- I don't have legitimate prospects or relations. I don't have a home to retire to as you do. I'm not a fool- I know there'll come a time when I can no longer continue as I am. I’ll be damned if I’m ever lose more of my leg again. So, I need security. I need to know that when I set off The Walrus for the last time, I’m not walking into a world where I’ll have to scrape for food or shelter. I need to know I won't be denied the dignity I deserve.”

Flint considered his answer thoughtfully, something strange working in his brow. Then, releasing a breath, something shifted in his countenance so it looked as though he had reached a decision. “If we are left standing after the fight for Nassau is over, we’ll return to where we buried the cache of pearls. We’ll claim our share and if that does not suffice, we’ll do what we must for more. If it’s security you need, we’ll procure it..”

Silver’s face was colored with confusion. “You’d have to wait on _me_ , then- you wouldn't get to rest, you wouldn't be able to go home. God knows how long it would take-”

“I've waited years to make good on what I’ve started for Thomas and Miranda. What could a little more waiting do to me? We’ll stand in this together and when the time comes, we’ll leave it all behind.  We’ll set off together to find somewhere far away from the sea.”

“Some place where can bury our oar?” Silver proposed, smiling. “I suspect we’d have to walk to the ends of earth to find it,”  

“Don’t you think it will have been worth it?” Flint said. Silver immediately recognized himself in those words, realizing at once that Flint was echoing the question back to him.

Silver felt overwhelmed with all he felt for him then, that familiar tide of affection rushing over him all at once. Silver leaned into him, pressing a kiss to his mouth. “Swear it,” he said, parting from the kiss to touch foreheads with him. “Promise me you'll survive whatever awaits us. We’ll make it out together and alive. We’ll go back for the treasure. We’ll find peace and make a home for ourselves.”

“John, I-” Flint began warily, his voice framed by reluctance until he could only make a noise as Silver’s lips closed over his own again. Flint’s arms wrapped around his waist, pressing him close against his chest- bare, solid, warm.

Silver clung to him, held onto him, wishing he could never let go. “ _Please_.”

Flint took a nervous, stuttering breath. Perhaps once, when he was younger and less accustomed to having everything he loved torn out of him, he could've answered more quickly. Oaths were so laced with the audaciousness of hope, of hubris and vulnerability, too. It felt impossibly fragile, bright and newly breathing like the mutual intimacy they had finally grown accustomed to.

“Yes,” Flint said at last and Silver could hear where devotion, longing and even fear entwined together, as if a single word could allow all they felt for each other to spill over, bleeding at the edges. “Yes, John, I swear it.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things: I had to get some thigh worship in this story somewhere. Have you seen Toby Stephen's legs? Goodness gracious. And one thing I hadn't noticed until I looked back was how often John wanted to um...well, do what he did in this chapter. I sincerely didn't think this story would end in yet another sex (i'm still blushing, jfc), but it seemed a shame to not let John get a bit more of what he wanted, considering how much angst it took to get here. 
> 
> Now, far more importantly, we're done! Writing this fic has been such a wild ride- I never thought, when I first conceptualized this story, that it would go on for the span of a few months and culminate to eleven chapters! I couldn't have done it if it hadn't been for each and every one of you- every kudos, visit, comment, every positive tag on tumblr, they all had such an impact on me. I hope you all know that this couldn't have happened were it not for the support and kindness you all showed me. To the friends whose good opinions and patience and unending graciousness helped me when I need distractions or second opinions or validation when I felt most thin-skinned: words don't suffice. thank you, thank you, thank you.
> 
> May we survive season four together, dear friends!

**Author's Note:**

> [come say hi to me on tumblr!](http://marsza.tumblr.com/)


End file.
